by Carolyn Wakeman

Lyme artists often used etchings, lithographs, woodcuts, and sketches of wintry settings when sending holiday greetings to friends. Not all of the snow-covered houses and woodlands they depicted can be identified, but some show recognizable local scenes that capture Old Lyme’s landscape a century ago, before temperatures warmed and snowstorms became less frequent. The woodblock print that Mary Roberts Ebert and her husband Charles sent in 1933 looks east across the Lieutenant River to the Pierpont Hotel, Congregational Church, and moonlit Meetinghouses Hill beyond. Other years her graceful colored sketches showed snowy hills, perhaps bordering the Lieutenant River near her Lyme Street home, and a small, unidentifiable house with brightly lit windows and blue smoke rising from the chimney.

Featured image: Mary Roberts Ebert, The Ebert Family send Christmas Greetings from Old Lyme, 1933. Woodcut. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

Mary Roberts Ebert, A Merry Christmas, Mary Roberts Ebert, Charles Ebert, n.d. Woodcut. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

Mary Roberts Ebert, Christmas Greetings, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Ebert. Woodcut. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

In 1930 and again in 1940, William and Pauline Chadwick sent etchings of the Congregational Church. Another of their cards conveys greetings with the etching of an ice-coated dam, not clearly identifiable but almost certainly a local waterfall.  A gilt-bordered sketch by Walter Magee and an etching by Edward Gregory Smith capture their houses on Sill Lane buried in snow. One year Winfield Scott Clime used a photograph of his painting Winter Harvest, showing the Tooker family’s icehouse on Library Lane, for a Christmas card.

Merry Christmas, William and Pauline Chadwick, 1930. Lithograph. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

William Chadwick, Christmas Greetings, William and Pauline Chadwick, 1940. Lithograph. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

William Chadwick, Merry Christmas from William & Pauline Chadwick, n.d. Lithograph. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

Platt Hubbard, Merry Christmas, Walter Magee, n.d. Linocut with hand tinting. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

Gregory Smith, Greetings from the Gregory Smiths, n.d. Linocut. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

Winfield Scott Clime, Winter Harvest, Best Wishes from the Climes of Old Lyme, n.d. Lithograph. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

Other artists conveyed seasonal greetings with evocative but not specifically identifiable views of the local landscape in winter. Beatrice Harper Banning sent an etching of sheep browsing in a snowy field, possibly showing a wintry salt marsh beside the Connecticut River. William S. Robinson’s pen and ink sketch of a house with small barns, like Everett L. Warner’s prints of a snow-covered field beside a brook and a dam in winter, convey details that typify Old Lyme’s wintry setting.

Waldo Banning, Old Lyme, Happy Christmas, from the Waldo Bannings, n.d. Lithograph. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

William S. Robinson, Greetings from Wm. S. Robinson, n.d. Ink, graphite, colored pencil. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

Everett L. Warner, Christmas Greetings from Katharine and E. L., n.d. Linocut. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

Everett L. Warner, New Year’s Greetings from Everett L. Warner, n.d. Ink and watercolor. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

Even etchings that include imagined details capture the features of the local landscape. One year Pauline and William Chadwick sent an etching of wintry fields that includes a glistening Christmas star. Another year their holiday card featured warmly clad figures choosing a Christmas tree and cutting greens in a snowy woods. Winfield Scott Clime sent a Christmas card reproducing his etching that imposed a stagecoach delivering holiday mail along a snow-covered road traversing an icy stream. Caro Weir Ely added paper chains and a star to a stately spruce tree featured prominently in a snow-mounded field.

While holiday greeting cards today favor photographs of smiling family members, Lyme artists at a different cultural moment conveyed warm wishes with distinctive artworks that depicted holiday traditions and conveyed a shared admiration for the surrounding landscape.

William Chadwick, Merry Christmas from the William Chadwicks, n.d. Lithograph. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

William Chadwick, Merry Christmas from the William Chadwicks, n.d. Lithograph. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

Winfield Scott Clime, Best Wishes for a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, The Climes, n.d. Lithograph. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

Caro Weir Ely, Merry Christmas from the Page Elys, n.d. Etching. Jack Hoffman Papers, Lyme Historical Society Archives, Florence Griswold Museum

To read more about holidays past, check out these blogs:

https://flogris.org/christmas-greetings-in-wartime/

https://flogris.org/glimpses-a-holiday-homecoming-caro-weir-ely-in-portraiture-and-print/

https://flogris.org/documents-dairy-christmas-and-happy-moo-year/