Holiday Tea Ways - Florence Griswold Museum
Here is a photo essay of my time at a Holiday Tea at The Florence Griswold Museum. I hope you enjoy the scenes of a festive holiday trip I took with my sister who treated me.
There are decorated holiday trees throughout the museum. Each tree is filled with artist pallet’s that many artists have decorated which are on display on each sponsored tree. There were so many lovely art pieces. We couldn’t decide which ones we liked best.
This Writing Desk was beautiful to see as a life long letter writer - very inspiring!
Who Was This Remarkable Woman?
One of four children of a ship captain, Miss Florence was born on Christmas Day, 1850 and raised in the finest house on the main street of a thriving Connecticut town. Old Lyme, a center of shipbuilding and commerce, was established in the early 1600s and counted the Griswolds among the town’s oldest families. Their Late Georgian-style mansion, built in 1817 on a twelve-acre estate, was purchased by Captain Robert Griswold for his bride Helen Powers in 1841. The family’s and the town’s fortunes reversed, however, as a result of the Civil War and the invention of steam-powered vessels. To survive financially the Griswolds turned their home into a school and eventually a boarding house. By the late 1890s only Miss Florence was left to maintain the family homestead. Soon she, and the town, would transform and survive in unexpected ways.