Growing Up in the Mansion: The Billings Children's Keepsakes at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller

"Mansion of Happiness." Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller NHP museum collection, MABI 13623.

The exhibit

What was it like to grow up in the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Mansion? The exhibit "The Billings Family: Youth in the Mansion," curated by former curatorial member Leo Walker and on show in the park's Carriage Barn Visitor Center, answers with costumes, toys and other traces of childhood from the park's museum collection.

Frederick and Julia Billings raised seven children — Parmly, Laura, Fritz, Mary Montagu, Elizabeth, Ehrick and Richard — in a loving home. Julia's diary tells of evenings spent together playing board games such as the Mansion of Happiness, one of 60 games in the collection. Made in England and popular enough to cross to the United States, it teaches moral and Christian lessons along a path of 66 spiraling squares: virtues push players forward, vices send them back, and the first to reach the "Mansion of Happiness" at the center wins.

Parmly (born 1863)

Parmly Billings' first shoes. MABI 9395.

The first child, born soon after the wedding and named for Julia's maiden name, Parmly had a spinal deformity that badly affected his balance — he broke his arm twice in six months. The family rebel, he fibbed, played pranks and teased his siblings, until "outgrowing his boyish tricks" and taking to fishing, hiking and swimming. His baby shoes, inscribed by Julia, are the only baby shoes from the seven children in the collection — though Mary Montagu, after starting a family with Woodstock lawyer John French, kept a pair of her own child's.

Laura (born 1864)

Laura Billings' gold thimble and bookmark. MABI 5672 and MABI 6160.

The first daughter learned sewing and embroidery from her mother young. Her gold thimble, banded with quatrefoils and a shield bearing her name, is a size five — small beside others in the collection, perhaps a childhood gift. Her blue ribbon bookmark, stitched with her name around an embossed frame like the greeting cards of the day, turned up inside her copy of Madame de Staël's Corinne (Paris, 1836), a love story and meditation on Italy — a more grown-up read. Perhaps she kept a keepsake of childhood close to whatever she was reading.

Mary Montagu (born 1869)

Woodstock Country Club trophy, 1922. MABI 2237.

The second daughter was the most adventurous and athletic of the sisters, and golf was her favorite sport. One of 16 trophies in the collection, hers reads "Woodstock Country Club / 1922 / Beaten Eight / First Prize / Mary M.B. French" — French being her married name after she wed John French in 1907. She loved the game so much she had a nine-hole course and a golf house laid out on the family property.

Elizabeth (born 1871)

Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs. MABI 3949.

The youngest daughter, called the "quiet" one, loved music: in the 1890s the parlor held two pianos so she could play duets. Her Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs, published by McLoughlin Bros. of New York, has "Lizzie" stamped in gold on the cover and piano arrangements with woodcuts; it lies open to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." An inscription says her cousin Elizabeth Parmly gave it to her. Lizzie never had children, but became the fun "Dear Aunt," playing and singing hymns with her nieces and nephews — perhaps from this very book.

To see the rest, visit "The Billings Family: Youth in the Mansion" at the Carriage Barn Visitor Center.

Sources

Based on "Temporary Exhibit Featuring Frederick and Julia Billings' Seven Children," by Leo Walker and Alexa "Lex" Rose, ACE CRDIP curatorial members, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, National Park Service, citing Bruce Whitehill, "American Games: A Historical Perspective" (1999), and the park's Historic Furnishings Report (2013); published by the National Park Service and in the public domain; rewritten in hubnx's own words.