Origin of ATHA's 27 Years of History

Region 1 Celebrates 25th Anniversity

Webpage updated January 9, 2007

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 22 April 1979, The meeting was called to order
by Peg Hansen in West Willington Connecticut.

Front Row Left->Right	Second Row Left->Right	Standing Left->Right
Peg Hansen	Florence Treadwell	Michelle Martin*
Virginia Pioso	Geneva Lapham	Barbara Hambleton
Celeste Schifino	Shirley Herpich	Dede Del Guadio
Anne Johnson	Helen Charron	Eleanor Osterman
Betty Kelly	Marie Oakes
Ellen Hansen		*did not join

On April 22, 2006 ATHA celebrated , very quietly, 27 years of organization. Now I'd like to remember the origins, and recall a little history of this wonderful association.

The following letter is unedited and retyped from Peg Hansen's original invitation to rug hookers she was aware of at the time.

Many people I have talked with and hear from ask what an Open Guild is and why should rug hookers have one. The following is my attempt to answer these questions and convey a few of my ideas.

An Open Guild is one that is formed primarily to promote the interests of the membership. In this case Rug Hooking. It also means that any and all products are used by the members. No one company or individual is singled out as soul [sic] authority or director of the group. Thus, every single member will share equally in the benefits as well as the labors. All rules and regulations, in fact, everything the Guild does will be because all the members have voted and the majority wants it that way.

The Guild will be open to anyone wishing to join. Hopefully, in the future there will be divisions for groups such as manufacturers, distributors, dealers, teachers and hobbyists. These divisions would be withn the national Guild of course.

Some of my hopes are:

>To have an ever growing membership from all over the country, maybe even the world.

>To have every locality organise their own smaller groups and do their best to support the national group.

>To have several localities form divisions of the national group.

If all of you would send me your ideas on what you think should be covered in a guild's by laws and/or constitution, or any other ideas you have these could be compiled and be ready for consideration in the future. I am trying to write a questionnaire to send all of you. If you have any questions you think should be included please send them to me soon.

As I see it the first thing to do is to determine who the members are. As it stands now I would call anyone that indicates the desire to belong to an Open Guild a member when they say they want to join. These people will be kept informed of our progress and have a vote by mail or in person at our organizational meeting.

With the help from members, either by mail or personal contact I will prepare an outline of the proposals to be considered during the first meeting. There will also be ballots sent to each member to elect the officers. This means the local group should be fairly well organized so they will be able to nominate and elect their district representatives.

It would be very nice if we could get all the preliminary work done so we can have our first meeting in the summer so people can plan their vacations to include the meeting. Wouldn't it be great to have a get together with Hookers from all over the country? I dream a lot but some of the time I make things happen that way.

In the future I see:

>Regional workshops for all divisions
>Local, regional and national Hooked Rug Exhibits
>A newsletter
>A large membership >Many more local groups formed
>Much much more

It just occured [sic] to me that I have stressed local groups a lot. I do not mean that one must belong to a group in order to join the guild. Any rug hooker is welcome. In fact in any organization I know of being a member of a local group does not allow one to vote even though the group belongs to the guild. Each individual mut be a member in order to vote. Groups are usually considered affiliate members without a vote. Thus a group has as many votes as they have members who are individual members of the guild. Each member votes independently of the group he belongs to. A rather urgent matter is finaces [sic], postage, and copying add up fast. I was hoping to leave this until we had officers elected so a treasurer could handle all guild funds but I am going to tell you about a fund raising we have ready now and you can all do as you like about it. Some of you know that my husband and I run a small ceramic studio. We have made some coffee mugs with a Happy Hooker cartoon on them. These are to be sold only for the guild. We charge $1.00 for the materials we use for each mug. There is no charge for our work or time. The mugs retail for $2.50 so the $1.50 profit will be used for postage and copying only. This will be only until we are organized and the treasurer can take over then. In the meantime we will keep very accurate records regarding the sale of these mugs and report the same when writing to you or meeting with you. Anyone who is willing to help sell these mugs for us may order them, a dozen or more at a time, and we will be happy to send them to you with no charge to you. You just send the money when you sell them. We introduced these at a Rug Show in Fairfield CT and they lasted about two hours. We were wishing we had more with us.

After reading through this I am sure we need more than a treasurer. We are in great need of a typist too. I am an R.N., Ceramic Teacher and Rug Hooker but have never been exposed to typing. Just bear with me, things will get better. There is one consolation, my typing is better than my longhand.

Please everyone, do your best to promote membership in our Open Guild and let me hear from you. If any of you can use more copies of this I will be happy to send them to you.

The map I am sending is just to give you a [sic] idea of how the states might be devided [sic] into temperary [sic] districts. Permanent districts can be determined later by the membership.

The membership applications inclosed are for you to give to your friends. If you can it would be nice if you could have them fill them out and mail them back to me all together. Since we are not rich enough yet to send stamped envelopes with them we may get more members that way.

Happy Hooking Peg Hansen

Remembering our history will have periodic postings. Check back for more installments.

Submitted by Peg Yung
Farmington, CT

Two ATHA founders, Betty Kelly, left, and Peg Yung, right, flank current ATHA
President, Carol Ambrozy at Region 1’s 25th Anniversary Celebration at
Mercy Center, CT in May.

The traditional rug hooking world, to which we devote much of our time, has grown remarkably since ATHA was first organized in 1979 with Peg Hansen’s guidance. Peg dreamed of an open association where members were free to express their creative talents, whether with a three or eight cut. She expected members to be knowledgeable in all phases of the art, as well as share their ideas. She felt members would best be remembered for their creative and original work.

This year, Region 1 celebrated its 25th Annual Workshop at Mercy Center, Madison, CT. It was first organized by me, as Region 1 Representative, because early chapters forming needed seed money for mailings, rental fees, speakers and scholarships. The first Region 1 workshop, boutique, and exhibit was scheduled for June 23-26, 1982 at Miss Porter’s School, a private girls’ school in Farmington. Not only had Sarah Porter started her school in 1843, she began a preservation project of some of the most worthy colonial homes on Main Street. Many of the buildings used as dormitories and classrooms are historic preserved houses. This provided a perfect place for a rug exhibit and classes.

From a survey of Nutmeg and Mayflower Chapter members to determine what days of the week they would be most available, the result was Wednesday through Saturday. arned days, rather than family vacation days were not interrupted.

In Region 1 we spent hours collecting names of rug hookers, vendors, esigners and students to whom letters were sent inviting them to join ATHA meetings and activities. Names were taken from Region 1 Celebrates 25th Anniversary Peg Yung Relates History of Region Two ATHA founders, Betty Kelly, left, and Peg Yung, right, flank current ATHA President, Carol Ambrozy at Region 1’s 25th Anniversary Celebration at Mercy Center, CT in May. News and Views, Hooking Digest and Braided Magazine, and teacher lists were gathered from popular magazines at that time: McCalls Needlework, Country Home, Womans’ Day, Country Folk
Art, Country Living, Americana Antiques, to name a few.

Marie Oakes, Agnes and Mary Pane, Betty Kelly and I formed the first workshop committee. We all lived in Farmington or West Hartford. Miss Porter’s School was conveniently located near us. At a meeting with the school’s financial director, we agreed a charge of $25 a day for room and board. No maid services, however.

At that time, the school had a wonderful chef who was very resourceful. Many students were not from the seacoast, so he surprised them with lobster and clam chowder at noon on Thursday. It was delicious and, as it turned out, was left from a Hartford Insurance banquet the previous night.
We had planned meals, but this was not on our menu.

To finance the workshop, we needed a minimum of eight students per class. Well known teachers were chosen: Lib Callaway, Ann Ashworth, Jean rmstrong, Happy DiFranza, Jacqueline Hansen and Joan Blauvelt.

Enrollment included 61 students. ATHA membership was required for all participants and all names were checked against a membership roster. outique items were taxed 10% for Region 1.

The first workshop was a financial success allowing four scholarships the following year and seed money immediately to two new chapters.

I continued as Director for five years. Maggie McLea replaced me as Director at Mrs. Porter’s. When the workshop moved to Madison, Michele Micarelli became Director.

Region 1 hosted the third annual meeting and exhibit at Old Sturbridge Village and Sturbridge Sheraton Hotel on September 25, 26, 27, 1981. It took a year to plan. Chapter presidents, Region 1 Representative, Joan Moshimer and other interested members met with the Sheraton and
Sturbridge personnel to complete arrangements.

At that time, Old Sturbridge Village was divesting itself of the McGown business. ATHA decided to have a Designers Breakfast including 18 designers and honoring Pearl McGown. Also included were ATHA officers
and region representatives. Joan Moshimer hosted the breakfast.

The Educational Building at Old Sturbridge Village was a modern, large structure typical of school buildings designed with more open space, fewer
walls, ramps connecting pods or classrooms based on the architecture of Yale University. The building provided a spacious area with polished wooden floors, brick walls, fireplaces and ramp access to all large and smaller classrooms. A spectacular place to show rugs!

Jeanne Fallier was responsible for publicity, and Joan Moshimer was generous in providing, in News and Views, the history of ATHA and articles of the coming Sturbridge Annual Meeting and Exhibit.

A committee of thirty members arrived Friday at 3:00 pm to prepare the exhibit of 860 rugs. Registration continued to 9:00 pm. Most rugs were in place by 10:00 pm, Agnes Pane and I stayed until 12:00 pm checking and counting all rugs in preparation for expected reporters. Forty McGown rugs were loaned by Sturbridge Village. Joan Moshimer was not well, so Agnes and I put them in place as a special exhibit. This was the last exhibit of the McGown Oriental collection, as they were to be auctioned.

During the planning, Lib Callaway and Ann Ashworth became my onsultants. We reserved 200 rooms at the Sheraton which went quickly, eventually all
rooms were occupied. Members who notified us of their arrival into Bradley Airport were met by Jeannette Szatlowski of Fraser Studio and driven to the hotel. Maggie McLea was in charge of vendors. Marie Oakes hosted the banquet and Doris De Prospo handled the annual meeting. At the banquet, Mary Sheppard Burton presented a slide show of the Tapestries of Mobelle Homes “The Pageant of American History”.

Early in the planning, I asked members to volunteer to present mini-lectures and demonstrations during exhibit hours for members interested. Twenty volunteers offered programs in their expertise, giving members an opportunity to meet and discuss topics of mutual interest: Lib Calloway, Alice Beatty, Jeanne Fallier, Joyce Craptree, Florence Treadwell, Maggie McLean, Happy DiFranza, Virginia Klump, Joan Scott, Mary Lacey, Agnes Pane and Diane Smith. This reads like a Who’s Who in rug hooking at the time. This was a wonderful opportunity to meet unique and talented rug hookers.

The show of 860 pieces took nine hours to assemble, but the same crew of members took less than an hour to disassemble the show with no problem. A job well done due to the complete cooperation of so many Region 1 members and friends.

Peg Hansen would have been proud of our weekend at Old Sturbridge Village. What a great display of classical, innovative, creative, traditional, original and unique pieces. No one method, cut or design dominated. Members welcomed the diversity and increased their appreciation of the art of rug hooking in all its variations.

I was not at Peg’s first gathering of rug hookers but never missed a meeting after that. We talked on the phone and met at several meetings. I have also attended all but one annual and biennial meetings. She did not want one group or method to dominate, and she felt the strength of ATHA would be openness and appreciation of all talent.