If you have a story attached to your house in Mayfield that you think is part of the lore and history of Baltimore, please write it up and email . It will be added to this post under it’s own title.
2109 Kentucky
Have you noticed the monument recently moved from Lake Clifton High School to 33rd Street? It has been reinstalled directly across the street from the YMCA. It is called the Good Shepard by the renowned Baltimore sculptor Grace Turnbull. The sculpture commemorates the artist’s affection for Lizette Woodworth Reese, a one time resident of 2109 Kentucky Avenue in Mayfield. This was her summer house. The date of her ownership is being researched and will be edited in to this article when found. Thanks to the research by Richard Smith on Crossland it was discovered that Ms. Reese purchased 2109 Kentucky in 1897, living there 20 years before selling the house John Richwien in 1917.
Grace Turnbull and Lizette Reese, sculptor and poetess had much in common. Both were born and raised in Baltimore, 1880 and 1856 respectively. Both lived long lives as Baltimore City residents, both remained lifelong independent women and both artists reached a national audience. Grace Turnbull had works exhibited in the New York Metropolitan, the Corcoran Gallery and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Lizette Reese is the author of 15 books of poetry and prose. She was named the National Honor Poet in 1934 and had the distinction of receiving high praise even from the acerbic H.L Mencken “She was one the greatest living American poets.”
I have been reading her book of prose A Victorian Village which takes place when Lizette was growing up in Waverly around 1871. Her prose descriptions have the hand and expansiveness of a poet. Regarding the woman who sold her mother soap and pins every Fall she writes “From the striped shawl on her head to the thick shoes on her feet she was a flash of color, a March wind pushing through the rooms, a wild seller of tame, familiar household wares, a territory herself. She swore stout oaths; she shrilled all the gossip of the roads…”
The Prize
Lizette Reese taught in the Baltimore City school system for 45 years after her graduation from Goucher College. For many years there was a high school poetry award given in her name. It has unfortunately fallen by the wayside at poetries demotion to the larger challenges facing our educatiors. Does anyone have an interest in resurrecting a similar competition in honor of Lizette Reese within Mayfield.
I will leave you with a small poem about the smallest of things that leaves a memory to that moment. in time. Like a moment when you were 20 remembered at 60.
AFTER
Oh, the littles that remain!
Scent of mint out in the lane;
Flare of window; sound of bees;
These, but these.
Three times sitting down to bread;
One time climbing up to bed;
Table-setting o’er and o’er
This thing; that thing; — nothing more.
But just now in the lane,
Oh, that scent of mint was plain.
Lizette Wordworth Reese
