Glencairn Museum News | Number 12, 2019
Museum Educator Amy Glenn leads a “Christmas in the Castle” tour in Glencairn’s Great Hall.
For forty years (from 1939, the year Glencairn was completed, until 1979, the year Mrs. Pitcairn died) the Raymond and Mildred Pitcairn family celebrated Christmas at Glencairn. Their traditions included an annual “Glencairn Sing” concert featuring “The Glencairn Horns” (composed of members of the Philadelphia Orchestra); a decorated tree that reached beyond the second-floor balcony; large red and white poinsettia plants, natural wreaths, and candelabras; and a large Christmas day meal. The “Christmas in the Castle” tour explores these traditions and more, and also features significant examples of Nativity art in the Museum’s collections (medieval to modern), with stops on five different floors (including Glencairn’s tower). Below are a few of the highlights of this year’s tour.
Figure 1: The Pitcairns’ large Christmas tree was placed in the Great Hall. It reached beyond the second-floor balcony. This photograph shows that the Great Hall was decorated with hundreds of candles, which were lit for the annual “Glencairn Sing,” a concert attended by about 600 people during the time of the Pitcairns. The lighting of the candles was a special part of the evening. One longtime attendee remembers, “About eight or ten young girls, many of them granddaughters [of the Pitcairns], dressed in formal evening gowns, each with a long taper in hand, walk up to Mildred, who sits with lighted candle, from which she lights, in turn, the tapers. Then the girls go to various stations—some to the tall candelabra, some to the balconies—and there light the hundreds of candles, placed ready for this lighting.” (Jennie Gaskell) The concert still takes place at Glencairn Museum in the Great Hall every year; it has always featured “The Glencairn Horns,” a group of horns from the Philadelphia Orchestra playing Christmas hymns.
Figure 2: This large ride-on donkey (apparent also in the historic photo above, Figure 1) was donated to Glencairn Museum by Pitcairn family members several years ago. It was made by the famous Steiff factory in Germany in the late 1940s or early 1950s. A number of ride-on toys were kept at the bottom of the Pitcairns’ Christmas tree every year, and one of their grandsons has wonderful memories of this: “Nothing in my life ever exceeded the joy and fascination of unwrapping the latest version of the Steiff toys on wheels that were added every year. . . . with any luck you’d get pushed by uncles and aunts to the envy of younger cousins.”
Figure 3: Raymond and Mildred Pitcairn pose for their 1954 Christmas card photo in front of the Upper Hall fireplace. The Pitcairns’ Christmas decorating style featured large red and white poinsettia plants, natural wreaths, and candelabra. The poinsettias were grown in their own greenhouses across the street from Glencairn. The large painting of the Adoration of the Shepherds was made by artist Frank Snyder; it was displayed on the wall above the fireplace every year during the Christmas season. It was adapted from an illustration in The Christ Child, a 1931 children’s book by Maud and Miska Petersham.
Figure 4: When Glencairn became a museum in the 1980s, it was found that the large painting by Frank Snyder of the Adoration of the Shepherds (Figure 3) was beyond repair. However, thanks to generous donors, a full-sized reinterpretation of the painting was made in 2016 by Bryn Athyn artist Edwin Herder. Herder’s modern re-interpretation of this painting was informed by two different sources: the original illustration in the Petershams’ book, The Christ Child, published in 1931, and Frank Snyder’s interpretation of the illustration painted in the late 1930s.
Figure 5: This three-part Nativity scene was commissioned in the 1920s by Raymond and Mildred Pitcairn for use in their home during the Christmas season. The scenes were made by Winfred Hyatt, the principal stained-glass artist and designer for Bryn Athyn Cathedral, and later Glencairn. Hyatt made the figures from plaster, and designed the scenes with the help of other craftsmen from Raymond Pitcairn’s Bryn Athyn Studios. It was first used at Cairnwood, Raymond’s childhood home next door to Glencairn, where the scenes were placed in front of the fireplace in the main hall. This Nativity was considered the most important element in the elaborate decorations at Cairnwood, where it was not seen by the Pitcairn children until Christmas morning. It moved with the family to Glencairn after the building was completed in 1939 and has been displayed annually in the apse at Glencairn ever since.
Figure 6: Mildred Pitcairn at Glencairn with her grandchildren in 1967, in front of a Nativity scene made by Winfred S. Hyatt for the Pitcairn family in the 1920s (see Figure 5).
Figure 7: The Pitcairns had nine children and many grandchildren. Most of them lived close by, so the family’s Christmas day meal took place at a long table that stretched from the Upper Hall fireplace toward the other end of the room. This photograph of the Christmas dinner table being prepared was taken in 1961. (Raymond and Mildred can be seen arranging flowers for the table.) Adults sat at the main table while the children had their own smaller tables nearby. A menu from 1960 included 4 turkeys, potatoes, gravy, 5 pounds of chestnuts, and 5 pounds of cranberries. The meal was served by 7 waitresses, with a staff of 5 in the kitchen. A display of Christmas cards is apparent on the wall by the window.
Figure 8: This photo from the 1960s features Raymond and Mildred Pitcairn surrounded by family members, at the center of their holiday table in the Upper Hall.
Figure 9: This photo, taken in Glencairn’s Great Hall in 1961, shows a children’s table at the Pitcairn family’s Christmas dinner (see Figure 7).
Figure 10: Glencairn Museum’s collection includes many of the original decorations used by the Pitcairns on their Christmas dinner table. Photographs from the 1960s (see Figures 7 and 8) show that the centerpiece of the table was Santa in his sleigh, being pulled by a magnificent reindeer. This decoration is actually a candy container made in Germany, most likely in the 1920s; the head of the reindeer comes off to reveal a silver-colored cardboard compartment for holding the candy. The large ceramic polar bear was made by Bing and Grondahl, a Danish company known for its collectible figurines, as well as their annual Christmas plates.
Figure 11: Over the years the Pitcairn family received many Christmas cards designed by artists who worked for Raymond Pitcairn at Bryn Athyn Cathedral and Glencairn (e.g. Winfred Hyatt, Lawrence Saint, Robert Glenn, Albert Cullen, and Louis Ewald). During the holiday season the family displayed some of the cards they received on bulletin boards in the Upper Hall (see Figure 7). This card was designed by Lawrence Saint.
Figure 12: This handmade card from 1932 was designed by Winfred Hyatt, an artist who worked for Raymond Pitcairn as the principal stained-glass designer for both Bryn Athyn Cathedral and Glencairn.
Figure 13: In addition to attending weekly church services at Bryn Athyn Cathedral, the Pitcairns held a worship service in their fifth-floor chapel every evening after supper, which they called “family worship.” The custom was common with families in the New Church (Swedenborgian Christian) denomination in Bryn Athyn to which they belonged. On Christmas Eve and Christmas day they attended services at Bryn Athyn Cathedral. This Christmas window in Glencairn’s chapel is an adaptation of a medieval window from Poitiers, France. It was made in Bryn Athyn in the stained-glass studio and glassworks.
Figure 14: This six-paneled lampshade is made of plexiglass, a material invented in the early 1930s. It features scenes from the Christmas story with accompanying quotations. This lampshade and several others in Glencairn were designed and painted by artist Frank Snyder in the late 1930s or early 1940s.
Figure 15: Mildred Pitcairn wore this red Christmas gown at the “Glencairn Sing” over a period of many years. It was made from red velvet and was probably designed for Mildred by her husband, Raymond. Raymond designed a number of gowns for Mildred during their 55-year marriage. (She is shown wearing this gown in Figures 3 and 6.)
(KHG)
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