McPhees, PECO Foundation honored for Updike house support

Posted on May 28, 2017 by johnupdikesociety

Roemer and Constance McPhee, whose support helped The John Updike Society to go all out and hire a historic restoration specialist to bring The John Updike Childhood Home in Shillington, Pa. back to the way it was when Updike lived there from “age zero to 13,” have received the society’s Distinguished Service Award.

In presenting the award at the society’s business meeting on Thursday, May 25, at the Westin Copley Place Hotel in Boston, society president James Plath recalled a phone call he received in December 2012 from “a man named Roemer McPhee, who told me he’d read about our efforts to turn The John Updike Childhood Home into a museum and wanted to help by sending us a check for $3000.” McPhee was a big John Updike fan and thought it was a perfect opportunity to give the writer his due.

Since that first donation, H. Roemer McPhee III—an author himself (The Boomer’s Guide to Story: A Search for Insight in Literature and Film) and a New York investor who studied at Princeton and the Wharton Graduate School of Business—has demonstrated his love of Updike by driving to Shillington to tour the house and Updike sites with his mother and later attended the Third Biennial John Updike Society Conference in Reading, Pa. with his wife and co-benefactor, Connie. Through their PECO Foundation, Roemer and Connie have contributed more than $70,000 over the years to help with the restoration, making them the second largest donor, behind the Robert and Adele Schiff Family Foundation, whose initial donation enabled the society to purchase the home. With some work still outstanding and museum display cases needed, the McPhees have also pledged additional help and said they are considering joining society members in Belgrade, Serbia for the Fifth Biennial John Updike Society Conference in June 2018.

“It’s fairly common to find foundations that care enough about a cause to donate money,” Plath said, “but to have the people behind those organizations also become involved on a personal level and to be so knowledgeable about Updike that they can discuss texts such as the Rabbit novels with members, that’s highly unusual, and it underscores the impact that Updike had as a writer.”

Because of their shared love of John Updike and his works, and because of the passion they’ve shown and the impact they’ve had in helping the society to fulfill its mission, the board of directors of The John Updike Society unanimously voted to award Roemer and Constance McPhee the society’s Distinguished Service Award, Plath said.

Over the nine years that The John Updike Society has been in existence, the society has given Distinguished Service Awards to James Yerkes, for his important contributions to Updike scholarship through The Centaurian print and online newsletter; Conrad Vanino, whose pro bono work as realtor helped the society acquire The John Updike Childhood Home and who continues to act as the society’s agent; and The Robert and Adele Schiff Family Foundation, whose generous support enabled the purchase and restoration of The John Updike Childhood Home.

Roemer McPhee’s most recent book is Killing the Market: Legendary Investor Robert W. Wilson.

Help the John Updike Society, shop Amazon Smile

Posted on May 13, 2017 by johnupdikesociety

It doesn’t sound like much—just .5 percent of every purchase you make—but it adds up. And it doesn’t cost you anything extra. Amazon makes a donation to the charity of your choice if you shop using the Amazon Smile url (which takes you to the Amazon site). It’s virtually the same shopping experience except that by going through Amazon Smile you help your favorite non-profit while you shop. And the set-up is one-time, easy, and intuitive. To start helping The John Updike Society now, go to:

http://smile.amazon.com/ch/45-1584125

Schiff Foundation supports Updike Society projects

Posted on December 10, 2016 by James Plath

In the past, The Robert and Adele Schiff Family Foundation had donated the money that enabled The John Updike Society to purchase the home at 117 Philadelphia Ave. in Shillington, where the Pulitzer Prize-winning author spent his first 13 years, and since then the foundation has contributed annually to help cover the costs of repairs, restorations, and maintenance.

This year’s donation provides a substantial increase—$280,000—for continued work on the house restoration, as well as $30,000 to be applied toward annual expenses, $50,000 “untouchable” money to grow an endowment that will help fund annual expenses well into the future ($1.5 million is needed, at bare minimum, to fund annual expenses moving forward), and $20,000 for a new initiative to help fund travel to the Fifth Biennial John Updike Society Conference in Belgrade, Serbia.

Details on the travel grants will be announced in a future post and email to members.

The donation allows work on the house—which had temporarily stopped, due to a lack of funds—to proceed again, and the crew from R.J. Doerr has already begun tearout work in the kitchen and second-floor sleeping porch. Workmen found more marbles that had fallen from their Black Room hiding place under floorboards, and also found the “footprints” of the original cabinets, stove, and sink. Anyone who took a tour of the house and walked onto the second-floor porch and noticed how “spongey” it was will not be surprised to learn that the wood is rotted and that the porch needs to be completely rebuilt, for safety’s sake. That work proceeds now.

The John Updike Childhood Home has been ruled eligible to apply for the national register of historic places, and the application process as well as a separate application for a historic marker are also moving forward.

The society is grateful to The Robert and Adele Schiff Family Foundation for their continued support. Pictured is the restored parlor and living room.

Donors are still sought for other aspects of the complete restoration—which will include planting privet around the perimeter of the property, re-doing and expanding the parking area, and changing the landscaping to incorporate elements from Updike’s childhood—and sponsoring/supporting exhibits to be placed inside the museum. An archivally safe exhibit case costs $2,000 and up, depending on size, and the goal is to place exhibits in cases in every room and on every level. Corporate and foundation sponsors are especially sought to sponsor exhibits. Contact James Plath (jplath@iwu.edu) if interested in helping.

Shop to benefit the John Updike Society

Posted on November 7, 2016 by johnupdikesociety

It doesn’t cost any more and it doesn’t take any more time. But once you access the Amazon Smile site and declare your support of The John Updike Society, then bookmark that page, you can shop at Amazon as you always have. The big difference? Amazon will donate a small portion of each purchase to the Society to help us continue the good work that’s being done to preserve The John Updike Childhood Home. Click here or on the banner below to get started!

After you finish shopping, you’ll get a message like this:

Schiff Family Foundation increases support of The John Updike Childhood Home

Posted on November 12, 2015 by johnupdikesociety

With the R.J. Doerr Company making great progress on the historic restoration of The John Updike Childhood Home at 117 Philadelphia Ave. in Shillington, Pa., the Robert and Adele Schiff Family Foundation announced that they will increase their support of The John Updike Society’s efforts to turn the home into a museum. This fiscal year they are upping their donation from $75,000 to $175,000.

“This really gives us some breathing room,” John Updike Society president James Plath said, “and I hope that the Schiff Family Foundation donation spurs others to give to a restoration project that’s really picking up steam.” Plath said that Doerr has come up with a restoration plan that takes into account Updike’s writings about the house, interviews with people who were inside the house during Updike’s time, historic features in similar period architectural dwellings, and “footprints” and other clues found inside the house that identify where architectural features and finishes were located. Restoration plans include replacing modernized radiators with period-style radiators and installing UV-protective surfaces on all windows. Interior walls and ornate archways that had been removed or simplified after the Updikes left will be recreated.

The entire restoration process is expected to cost $300-350,000, and the society is committed to making this museum and literary site a showplace equivalent to such historic American literary venues as the Mark Twain Home & Museum in Hannibal, Mo., and the Hemingway homes in Oak Park, Ill. and Key West, Fla.

The Robert and Adele Schiff Family Foundation is located in Cincinnati and is particularly interested in supporting projects that have to do with education.

Society launches separate JU Childhood Home website, Facebook page

Posted on August 1, 2015 by James Plath

The John Updike Society has launched a separate website for The John Updike Childhood Home and a separate Facebook page because “the time had come,” society president James Plath said. “This helps us as we move forward with the restoration, the acquisition of exhibit material, the forging of community relationships, and the development of a market for the house as a literary and tourist destination.”

The John Updike Childhood Home webpage is at: johnupdikechildhoodhome.com.

The Facebook page for The John Updike Childhood Home is http://www.facebook.com/johnupdikechildhoodhome.

Please bookmark the former and “like” the latter. There will be, out of necessity, some overlapping, but Updike fans will see things at the Childhood Home webpage that they can’t see on the Society home page.

John Updike Society hires historic restoration expert

Posted on July 20, 2015 by James Plath

The John Updike Society board has approved the hiring of R.J. Doerr Co., an Easton, Pennsylvania-based contractor that specializes in historic restorations and home museums. As the Reading Eagle reported, Doerr has “a 25-year history of restoring historic properties for nonprofits, including the home of George Taylor, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.”

This past Thursday Robert Doerr did a walk-through with society president James Plath at The John Updike Childhood Home at 117 Philadelphia Ave. in Shillington, and the two agreed to a three-phase restoration. Phase 1, which is projected to be completed by the end of summer 2016, will include all the rooms that have been “deconstructed”—the dining room, living room, parlor, foyer, and all upstairs bedrooms. During this phase, the entire house needs to be rewired and the radiators need to be removed so that a more archivally-friendly forced air system of heating and cooling can be installed. Phase 2 will include the restoration of the front, side, and second-floor porches. Phase 3 involves the addition of a grape arbor that was there prior to 1945 when the Updikes moved to Plowville, and the addition of decorative exterior corbels that had been removed to make repainting cheaper/easier. The kitchen and second-floor bathroom will also be upgraded to be period, but functional, during this phase. The total for the three-phase restoration is expected to be around $300,00 to $350,000, and Plath said he is “currently and always” looking for additional corporate, foundation and individual benefactors. Those who donate $500 or more will have their names on a donor wall inside the house.

Work will begin the end of summer, after Habitat for Humanity of Berks County finishes “tear-out.” Plath estimates that Habitat volunteers saved the society an estimated $20-30,000 by scraping wallpaper and removing everything that was added to the house after 1945.

The Reading Eagle has the story.

Michael Updike: Moran’s haul wasn’t trash

Posted on March 4, 2015 by James Plath

We received the following note and accompanying materials from Michael Updike, who notes that the bags that Paul Moran famously hauled away from his father’s Beverly Farms curbside contained much more than trash, and offers an important donation if Moran will donate his part to The John Updike Childhood House:

Dear John Updike Society,
As you know my father, as a young aspiring cartoonist, sent off fan letters asking established cartoonist for original artwork. I have enclosed a letter to Harold Gray of The Blondie strip that has miraculously survived.
The most famous successes to these letters were original works by Saul Stienberg and James Thurber. These were in the exhibit of JHU items at the Boston conference and mentioned in Due Consideration P.612 . Another bit of booty was this original Mickey Finn strip by Lank Leonard. It is signed in cartoon capitals “-TO JOHN UPDIKE-WITH ALL THE BEST FROM Lank Leonard”. It has been kicking around our house ever since I remember. At some point (circa mid seventies) the last three panels went missing. The tape had long given way. I assumed they were lost for good to the far corners of the house or thrown out. Recently, to my great surprise, the lost panels showed up on The Other John Updike Archive. I can only assume that my father took them during the divorce and they went to the trash shortly before or after his demise. My siblings and I would love to see the two parts of this comic reunited after forty years of separation. We would happily donate our half of the work to the John Updike House if the other owner would donate as well.
Thanks very Much
Michael

January 2, 1948

Mr. Harold Gray
c/o New York News Syndicate
220 East 42nd Street
New York 17, New York

Dear Mr. Gray:

I don’t suppose that I am being original when I admit that ORPHAN ANNIE is, and has been for a long time, my favorite comic strip. There are many millions like me. The appeal of your comic strip is an American phenomenon that has affected the public for many years, and will, I hope, continue to do so for many more.

I admire the magnificent plotting of Annie’s adventures. They are just as adventure strips should be–fast moving, slightly macabre (witness Mr. Am), occasionally humorous, and above all, they show a great deal of the viciousness of human nature. I am very fond of the gossip-in-the-street scenes you frequently use. Contrary to comic-strip tradition, the people are not pleasantly benign, but gossiping, sadistic, and stupid, which is just as it really is.

Your villains are completely black and Annie and crew are practically perfect, which is as it should be. To me there is nothing more annoying in a strip than to be in the dark as to who is the hero and who the villain. I like the methods in which you polish off your evil-doers. One of my happiest moments was spent in gloating over some hideous child (I forget his name) who had been annoying Annie toppled into the wet cement of a dam being constructed. I hate your villains to the point where I could rip them from the paper. No other strip arouses me so. For instance, I thought Mumbles was cute.

Your draughtsmanship is beyond reproach. The drawing is simple and clear, but extremely effective. You could tell just by looking at the faces who is the trouble maker and who isn’t, without any dialogue. The facial features, the big, blunt fingered hands, the way you handle light and shadows are all excellently done. Even the talk balloons are good, the lettering small and clean, the margins wide, and the connection between the speaker and his remark wiggles a little, all of which, to my eye, is as artistic as you can get.

All this well-deserved praise is leading up to something, of course, and the catch is a rather big favor I want you to do for me. I need a picture to alleviate the blankness of one of my bedroom walls, and there is nothing that I would like better than a little momento of the comic strip I have followed closely for over a decade. So–could you possibly send me a little autographed sketch of Annie that you have done yourself? I realize that you probably have some printed cards you send to people like me, but could you maybe do just a quick sketch by yourself? Nothing funny, just what you have done yourself. I you cannot do this (and I really wouldn’t blame you) will you send me anything you like, perhaps an original comic strip? Whatever I get will be appreciated, framed, and hung.

Sincerely,

(Signed, ‘John Updike’)

John Updike
Elverson P. D. #2

Moran did the Updike world a huge favor when he saved all those bags from the dumpster, and the Society would have loved to bid on them. They would have made for terrific exhibits for The John Updike Childhood Home at 117 Philadelphia Avenue in Shillington, Pa., where Updike said his “artistic eggs were hatched.” Hopefully they’ll end up in a public, not private, collection.

The John Updike Society is committed to building a world-class author home museum, and anyone with materials to donate or offer for sale should contact Society president James Plath, jplath@iwu.edu. We are a 501c3 non-profit organization so all donations are tax deductible, and all donors will be acknowledged at the point of exhibit. We are also planning a donor wall where all who donate $500 or more, cash or in-kind, will be honored.

David Updike on Growing up Updike

Posted on January 5, 2015 by James Plath

David Updike, the current John Updike Scholar in Residence at Alvernia University, is featured in a new Alvernia Magazine article titled “Growing up Updike” (pp. 20-24).

In it, he talks about what it’s like being the son of one of America’s most celebrated authors and shares memories of one particular family trip to Pennsylvania, where his father “took us to see his old house in Shillington, but was too shy to knock and ask to go in,” so he “walked us back to the playing field [at the high school behind the house] and the shelter where he used to play roof ball,” David writes.

“Even at an early age I could sense his disappointment that we seemed to underappreciate these places which, for him, held such sweet emotional weight—the memory of childhood, of his being seven, or so, and sprinting out of the side door of his house [at 117 Philadelphia Ave.] to join his friends in the Pennsylvania twilight, to play a final game of roof ball.”

“It must have been a surprise to my parents, as it was to me, when I started to write short stories, and then odder still, had them accepted by The New Yorker. Photography, not writing, had been my preferred medium, and I knew well that my father had toiled for a decade or so—sending off countless cartoons, and spots, and light verse—before his poems were accepted by The New Yorker.

“I knew that my own success was somehow unjustified—unearned. I need not have worried, for in my mid-twenties things got more difficult, and I was languishing in New York, where I had moved for no very good reason . . . .”

Berks-Mont promotes David Updike conference talk

Posted on September 27, 2014 by James Plath

As with the previous John Updike Society conference hosted by Alvernia, plenary sessions that would appeal to local residents are “open,” and Berks-Mont recently posted a story on David Updike’s upcoming conference talk at 2 p.m. on Thursday, October 2 in Francis Hall Theater.

“There will be family pictures and some artwork, along with my own narrative and excerpts from my father’s writing as well as his mother, Linda Grace Hoyer, who was born and died in Plowville and published two collections of short stories,” Updike said.

Updike also mentioned The John Updike Childhood Home, which the society owns and is in the process of turning it into a museum and literary center.

“I am happy his home is being turned into a museum. I hope it has a useful life beyond the occasional tourists, something like a writing center for local students manned by college students,” Updike said.

The details of management will be decided by the board, which consists of JUS board members plus the curator and a representative of the Updike family—with Elizabeth Cobblah Updike serving the first term. Right now, the house is still a “deconstruction” zone. Then comes the construction, and finally decisions pertaining to the running of the museum and extent to which the house can be used as a literary center.

But the general consensus is that the house should indeed be used by writers and students. Before the society board voted to establish a board to run the house, they approved remodeling of the annex to include an education room, where classes could meet, lectures could be given, and a video on Updike in Pennsylvania could be shown on a TV monitor.

“David Updike will share photos, narrative and excerpts at upcoming conference”

THE JOHN UPDIKE SOCIETY

Celebrating one of the most significant American writers of the 20th century

Category Archives: John Updike Childhood Home