Clark Photographic Series

Dublin Core

Title

Subject

Clark Sugaring and Family (photo #00571)

Description

This series begins with a few pictures Neil Rappaport copied for the Clarks of the couple at the time they were married in 1940. There is also a copy photograph of their son Larry who died as a fairly young man. The next pictures are from a group Neil did on their fiftieth wedding anniversary. At the end of the series there is a photograph of Chester Clark dowsing for water and a few photographs of a birthday celebration for Lenora's brother. The majority of the photographs, taken in 1987, are of Chester and Lenora sugaring together on their farm, something they did for sixty years. Just the two of them, sometimes with help from neighbors, set out over fifteen hundred sap buckets every spring and their maple syrup, maple cream and maple candy were considered some of the best made in the state of Vermont. They also shipped their products all over the country. It was very difficult for the Clarks to give up this annual ritual; probably as difficult as when they gave up farming if not more so, but they just couldn't handle the physical labor and long hours during the compressed and unpredictable period each spring when sugaring occurs. The last of their syrup was sold in 2005.