As published in the Record Journal Sunday November 25, 2012
By Laurie Rich Salerno
Record-Journal staff
lsalerno@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2235
Twitter:@LaurieSalernoRJ
WALLINGFORD — When MaryLou McNamara dons her mid-19th century costume to walk visitors through the town’s silver museum today, she’ll be thinking about her father.
Her dad, Otello Massoni, was one of many men and women in the area who spent their careers working for the International Silver Co. in a Wallingford plant. He was a die cutter, responsible for the patterns on the end of silverware. He has since passed away, so McNamara and her mother, Carolyn Massoni, feel they’re honoring his memory and many others by promoting the Franklin and Harriet Johnson mansion, which houses the silver museum, with a Victorian Christmas open house today.
“They were such artists. They took their time to get things right. They were perfectionists,” McNamara said of the local silver workers on Friday, while on a break from festooning the mansion with period- inspired Christmas decorations that she and her mother either purchased or made.
Carolyn Massoni, a member of the board of the Wallingford Historic Preservation Trust, is officially hosting the event with the help of McNamara and her husband, Thomas, and their two daughters, Carleen and Lauren.
From noon to 5 p.m., the women, in Victorian costume, will show visitors around the building at 153 S. Main St. Their clothing will reflect the period in which the 1866 Italianate building and many of its furnishings were built.
The women will show off the furniture and the decorations they’ve carefully arranged over the last few weeks as a backdrop for the collection of locally made silver items that are in each room. Cider and cookies will be available for guests.
The event is free, and Massoni hopes that showing visitors the building will encourage some to donate to the museum.
“I think they’ll be inspired by it,” she said.
The house underwent a major 2002-04 renovation to return it to the shape the Johnsons knew when they occupied it. In the intervening years, it had served as tenement housing and a medical building.
Since the renovations, volunteers have donated furniture and have been raising funds for projects such as acquiring more period-appropriate decor, such as wallpaper and carpeting, to complete the historic look of the interior.
Massoni, who runs an annual St. Patrick’s Day fundraiser for the trust at Zandri’s Stillwood Inn, would like to see the museum use donations for cabinets that would display more of the silver that the museum owns.
The trust has been increasing events for the building in the last year, with lectures and summer open houses. During the weekend of Celebrate Wallingford, about 500 people toured the building, according to trust President Jerry Farrell Jr.
Farrell said he wasn’t involved in the planning for today’s event — that was solely Massoni and her family — but that he would be bringing his own family.
“It should be nice. It’s a nice kickoff to the season, hopefully something that can become an annual tradition,”Farrell said.
As for the Massoni family, they’re hoping to see a lot of people come through the mansion’s doors today. “The Silver Museum is near and dear to our hearts,” McNamara said. “We really want to see this place take off.”
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