Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society
History Quarterly Digital Archives

Source: January 1992 Volume 30 Number 1, Page 36

Notes and Comments

• Club Officers
• New Superintendent of Schools Assumes Post
• Trinity Church Named Presbyterian Historic Site
• Local Resident Receives State Recognition
• New Chester County Coverlet

Page 36

Club Officers

The new officers of the Tredyffrin Easttown History Club for the next two years are shown on the first page of this issue.

We thank Ginny Mentzer, our newest past president, Jinks Kolderup, who served as second vice president, and Libby Weaver, our retiring recording secretary, for their many contributions to our club meetings during their terms in office. In too many cases their work was seemingly so effortless that it was simply taken for granted.

We do appreciate all that they did.

New Superintendent of Schools Assumes Post

On December 1, 1991 Dr. Theodore Foot took over the position of Superintendent of Schools for the Tredyffrin/Easttown School District. His appointment late last summer was the culmination of a ten-month search to fill the position left vacant following the resignation of Dr. Jamieson McKenzie the previous December.

In the interim the district had been under the able direction of A. Barry Yocom, director of curriculum and instruction, who served as acting superintendent.

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Dr. Foot came to the district from the Niskayuna School District in the suburban Schenectady-Troy-Albany area in New York, where he had served as superintendent for the past five years. Priot to that he had been the superintendent in the Burnsville School District in Minnesota, at Wilton, Connecticut, and at Minnetonka in Minnesota. He received his bachelor's degree from Princeton University, and his master's and doctor's degrees from Harvard. He started his career as an English teacher, and was at one time, in the mid-1960s, an administrator in the neighboring Radnor School District.

In announcing his appointment last summer Mary Ellen Mittelstaedt, the president of the School Board, commented that throughout his career he had demonstrated "a commitment to excellence, a capacity to motivate, and a strong belief in the importance of developing teachers".

Trinity Church Named Presbyterian Historic Site

Last October the Trinity Presbyterian Church of Berwyn was designated an historic site by the American Presbyterian Historic Sites Registry established by the Presbyterian Historical Society. With the designation it also received a commemorative plaque, which has been put in a prominent location in the church building pending a formal dedication service to be held later this year.

The 1OOth anniversary of the present church building wil1 be observed this fall. When it was built it replaced a 30-year-old outgrown first church building that had been built in 1862. The corner stone for the new building was laid in October 1891, with construction completed by September the following year. The architect for the building was John Frazer, and the builder was W. H. Burns, of Berwyn.

The principal consideration in determining a property's appropriateness for the historic list is its "uniqueness". In making application for the inclusion of the Trinity Church in the Registry it was pointed out that it was both the first building to be chartered and built as a church in Easttown township and also the first Presbyterian church in the emerging villages along the upper Main Line where there are now four Presbyterian churches, in Wayne, Devon, and Paoli, as well as in Berwyn.

It was also noted that the founding minister of the church, the Rev. John McLeod, was a man of some prominence in the Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A., New School. The 1892 sanctuary, of Gothic style with a tower, was also the first "cathedral style" church to be built in the upper Main Line area.

[Barbara Fry]

Local Resident Receives State Recognition

Julie Nixon Eisenhower, who lives in Daylesford, was one of nine women named last fall as "Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania" for 1991.

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She was cited for her talents as an author, historian, and lecturer, and for her "outstanding achievements and contributions to society".

Since 1948 each year from two to ten Pennsylvania women have been recognized as Distinguished Daughters. Among those previously receiving the recognition were Pearl Buck and Princess Grace of Monaco.

Mrs. Eisenhower's books include Special People, a collection of profiles of six prominent people she had met and talked with while her father was president; Eye_ on_ Nixon, a photographic study of the president and the man; and Pat Nixon: the Untold Story.

New Chester County Coverlet

A woven coverlet or afghan featuring historic sites and other landmarks of Chester County was designed and introduced last fall by the Christmas Shop in Paoli.

Among the historic sites depicted are the Diamond Rock School House, the Knox Covered Bridge, Waynesborough, and a bank barn similar to the Federal Barn built in 1792 by William and Mary Davis near the former quarters of General DuPortail during the winter encampment of the colonial army at Valley Forge.

The Christmas Shop was opened in September 1965 by Jane Beetem, who ran it for about ten years before moving to Georgia. It is now owned and operated by Dick and Mildred Ericson, who bought it in 1976 and enlarged it considerably last summer.