It would, it would look - Tonight, on New Hampshire Crossroads, a theatrical valentine.

We attend a rehearsal of a A.R.

Gurney's two-character play, Love Letters.

Then a visit to the former campus of the Laconia State School with some people who once lived and work there.

And we meet Paul Barter of Belmont, a man with a collection of printing presses any museum would be proud of.

Hi, I'm Fritz Wetherbee, and this is New Hampshire Crossroads.

Theme Music New Hampshire Crossroads is underwritten in part by First NH Bank, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

Clarion Somerset Hotel and Apartments of Nashua, New Hampshire, where we make living fun.

And Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Hampshire.

For over 50 years, dedicated to providing quality health benefit protection programs for employers, employees and individuals.

What better place to be on Saint Valentine's Day than in a candy store?

We are in Harbor Treats Chocolates here in downtown Portsmouth and they are all decorated up for Saint Valentine's Day.

And our first story on Crossroads is a sort of valentine.

The Seacoast Repertory Company is mounting a production of A.R.

Gurney's Love Letters, a play about love and life.

And for this production, they are bringing in some very special acting talent.

Tony Award-winning actor John Rubinstein will be here to recreate the part that he introduced on Broadway, along with his wife, Jane Lanier.

They will be here for five performances, and for three performances, there is a special New Hampshire cast.

And what makes this cast so special?

Well, Crossroads producer James Gilmore stopped by rehearsals to find out.

You may remember John Rubinstein from such Broadway productions as Pippin and Children of a Lesser God.

On television, he appeared in the series Crazy Like a Fox with Jack Ward.

Well, now he shares the stage in Portsmouth with none other than Fritz Wetherbee.

Our Fritz Wetherbee of New Hampshire Crossroads.

Could I have your name, please?

(laughter) Fred Minot Wetherbee II.

How is it that you got involved in Love Letters?

Well, Roy gave me a call and said that he was doing this and would I be interested in doing it?

And I said, yeah, because it's a relatively simple play.

There's not a lot of memorization.

And it’d give me a chance to do something that I haven't done before.

That's a probably about exactly right for the scripts, except that you won't be holding them.

So if you could imagine.

Roy Rogosin is founder and artistic director of the Seacoast Repertory Theater.

Well, I think any, any beautiful love story is a story about a relationship and certainly Love Letters is a story about a relationship.

And what is very special about it is that it traces that relationship from the time these two lovers are literally children all the way up until the very, very end when they are very, very mature.

So it has, a kind of a kaleidoscopic effect on the audience in terms of seeing fragments of these two lives as they come together and separate and come together and separate over a long period of time.

Andrew Makepeace III accepts with pleasure the kind invitation of Mr.

and Mrs.

Gilbert Channing Gardner for a birthday party in honor of their daughter, Melissa, on April 19th, 1937, at half past three o’clock.

Dear Andy, thank you for the birthday present.

I have a lot of Oz books, but not The Lost Princess of Oz.

What made you give me that one?

Sincerely yours, Melissa.

I'm answering your letter about the book.

When you came into second grade with that stuck up nurse, you looked like a lost princess.

I don't believe what you wrote.

I think my mother told your mother to get that book.

I like the pictures more than the words.

Now let's stop writing letters.

I will make my L's taller than my D’s.

I will close up my A's and my O's.

I will try to make longer P’s.

Pass it on.

You're funny.

Will you be my valentine?

Were you the one who sent me a valentine saying, will you be my Valentine?

Yes, I sent it.

Then I will be, unless I have to kiss you.

Helen Auerbach appears with Fritz in Love Letters.

A longtime Seacoast resident and former Broadway actress, Miss Auerbach finds that appearing in a play with no special sets or memorized lines has its own unique set of challenges.

Plays have scenes which have a beginning, middle, and end, often, unless they're very adventuresome and don't work that way.

Most plays have a a curve, and with this you have to, each, each letter is the center of a scene.

It's the high point of a scene.

And there's no way to go from here to there to the end of it.

There's no curve.

It's right there.

I have to tell you this right off the bat.

I'm really goddamn mad at you.

I invite you up here for the only dance my class has been able to go to since we got here.

I meet you at the train and buy you a vanilla milkshake.

And bring you out to school in a taxi.

I score two goals for you during the hockey game the next afternoon.

I buy you the $8 gardenia corsage.

I make sure your dance card is filled with the most regular guys in the school.

And then what happens?

I now hear that you sneaked off with Bob Bartram during the Vienna Waltz and necked with him in the coat room.

I heard that from two guys.

And then Bob himself brought it up yesterday at breakfast.

He says he French kissed you and touched both your breasts.

I tried to punch him, but Mr.

Enbody restrained me.

I'm really sore, Melissa.

I consider this a betrayal of everything I hold near and dear.

Particularly since you would hardly even let me kiss you good night after we had cocoa at the Rector's.

And you know what I'm talking about, too.

So don't expect any more letters from me, or telephone calls either during spring vacation.

Sincerely yours.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

I am.

I hate that Bob Bartram.

I hated him even when I necked with him.

I know you won't believe that, but it's true.

You can be attracted to someone you hate.

Well, maybe you can't, but I can.

So all right, I necked with him, but he never touched my chest.

And if he says he did, he should be strung up by his testicles.

You tell him that for me at breakfast.

Anyway, I, I I got carried away, Andy.

And I'm a stupid bitch, and I'm sorry, I, I felt so guilty about it that I didn't want to kiss you after the cocoa.

And besides, Andy.

Gulp.

Er, how do I say this?

With you, it's different.

You're like a friend to me.

You're like a brother.

And the surprising thing about this is that even if you're acting it, even when you're doing your first read through on this thing, you, you don't know that these two people can mean anything at all to the audience, because they are not what I call sympathetic characters, either one of them.

One is a stuffed shirt and the other one is a is an alcoholic, I don't know, kind of awful woman.

And you are surprised at the end of the play, you as an actor and and also in the audience, to find that you care very deeply about both of these people.

And it's a big surprise to everybody.

It's a, really is beautiful writing, triumphant, almost, writing.

What's it like directing Fritz?

Have I been silent long enough?

Fritz is an extraordinary man and a gifted actor in spite of himself.

And I think that I would have to say, what it's like directing Fritz, is to make sure that you give him the opportunity to think, think of himself, what you really wanted him to do all along.

And I think that if you create a context for him to be his extraordinary, fulsome self, he's a pleasure.

You should know that a lot of individuals and organizations have donated to make this benefit performance for the Seacoast Repertory Theater a success.

That beautiful desk, for instance, was loaned to the theater by Cabot House.

And productions of the play, starring John Rubinstein and Jane Lanier, will be this weekend, that is the 13th and 14th, and next weekend, the 19th and 20th.

And Helen Auerbach and I will be doing matinees on Saturdays of both those weekends, that is the 13th and the 19th.

Just call the ticket office for more information.

Our next story is about a venerable institution.

Back in 1903, the New Hampshire School for the Feeble Minded was founded on 247 acres of donated farmland up in Laconia, New Hampshire.

Now the name, of course, is offensive to us nowadays.

But back then it was run by many caring and loving people.

And after all, it lasted for 80 years.

It closed two years ago, taken over by these community based organizations, and when it closed, New Hampshire became the only state in the union not to have a state- supported institution for the disabled.

Now, the Laconia State School had a lot of trouble over the years, but there were a lot of things that were right with it as well.

And two years ago, producer Chip Neal took a tour of the now abandoned campus with some former residents and staff.

Music When I first came down here, you couldn't talk to a boy or else you get punished for something like that.

Really?

Yeah.

And then that changed.

Yeah.

I must've been 13 or 14 or 15 or something like that.

Because I was a young girl.

Yeah.

And then when you left here, how old were you?

I don’t remember.

It was how many years?

Just a, was it a few years ago?

No, longer than that.

Longer than that?

So you stayed here from the time you were 13 until, you might have been here 30 years or 40 years?

For 40 years.

Maybe 50.

Yeah.

That's a long time.

That is a long time.

What time would you get up in the morning here?

5:00.

5:00.

And then can you, what was your, the rest of your day like?

What did you do?

Well, I used to work in the Quinby building.

Quinby.

Yeah.

What did you do there?

Do dishes and stuff like that.

Sometimes I used to wait on tables in the house part.

Did you know people over there?

Well I did.

I remember Smith and.

Yeah.

She, she was crippled and I took her up.

Nobody wanted to take her the bathroom, so I chose to take her to the bathroom.

So I did it, all by myself.

You used to help her out that way?

Yup.

Music You know, you have a whole language.

It's institutional.

It's very archaic.

But there were what they called working girls.

And working girls were women who were, who were living here as clients who were able to work and, essentially as nurse’s aides, positions with clients who were more handicap, in the early days of the institution.

And that was all non paid work, so that you did have the working girls who bathed and fed.

I mean, you would have to, you had some of the wards where you had more than 50 totally handicapped individuals who required total care turning, feeding, changing.

And you might have two attendants with those folks.

There wasn't any way that the paid employees could have taken care of everyone, so that the system relied on, on residents being involved in running the community as well.

Music This room was set up with sort of an open concept.

The tiles that you notice here, they’re a little different.

When I came, a nurse's station was here or a charging station so that you could view everybody who lived here.

This side of the room.

What would you view if you looked out?

If I looked out here right now, I would see probably 40 beds.

40 beds, like against the walls and around?

Yes, yes.

They were head to head with partitions about waist high so that there was really no privacy.

Yeah.

And what about when you looked out this side?

This was the living room area.

Oh, okay.

Television was over there.

Couches, table in the back where they did activities.

Was there any chance that you can remember of a sense of family or of of, I mean, were there good times or was it always all bad times?

No, there were there were a lot of good times.

And I think that listening right now to David, and Nellie, they remember the good times.

And I just feel that the good times outweigh a lot of the bad times.

Institutions aren’t the place to be, but (yeah) there were a lot of good times here.

So people made the best of it?

Yes.

Music How long did you live here at the school?

32 years, I think.

32 years?

Yes.

Can you tell me about what you used to do in this place here and what this place is?

Well, the the this used to be a workshop, and I used to, used to fold towels and, fold towels and, and, and diapers and all that kind of stuff.

Now, how often did you work here?

Every day?

Yes.

Every day, yes.

How long?

Whenever, whenever.

Whenever I was needed.

Oh, I see.

Yeah.

Okay.

Now, what about the other people that you worked with here?

Did you make a lot of friends here?

I mean, a lot of, a lot of friends.

Mrs.

Grady and Mr.

Grady and, Kathy and Barbara and all those people.

Did you enjoy working here?

No, I, I, I didn't enjoy it.

No.

Why not?

Well, it was a little bit, it was a little bit hard.

Oh yeah?

Little bit, little bit, but, but it was a little bit, little bit hard but not too hard.

Music The school itself, it was kind of the, the monastery on the hill, so to speak.

It was a little removed from the rest of the city and people were aware it was there.

But I would doubt that if you asked anyone off the street what went on, they would just tell you that's where the folks with developmental disabilities live.

Now why don't you tell me from your perspective what went on here?

There were a great many things that went on here, some very good, some not very good at all.

It was almost as if it was its own little town within the city of Laconia.

The canteen was there as well as the village bank.

So it, it has its own bank and its own little restaurant and the activities department, the recreation department always had something going on.

There were, there were dances on Saturday nights and.

Music I was never ashamed to work here That, although the state school got a great deal of negative press, and well-deserved, during litigation and during its final years.

It was, that was, the type of press it received was very one sided.

And if you scrutinize any community of people, I think you'll find things that you would wish had not existed.

And you'll find things that exceed what you would, the goodness that you expect to find within people.

Music You have any sad feelings about not being here anymore?

No.

I'm glad I'm out.

Are you?

I'd much rather be out because they asked me at the center one time, and I said I'd rather be out, you know.

Because you don't belong in an institution.

You know?

Music What are the areas we need to work on most out there in the community based system now?

There's a tremendous problem, and I continue to work on that, trying to connect people to their community.

Music The Laconia State School was a community, a way of life, and for many, a part of their lives that is now fading into the distant past.

David and Nellie now live right here in Portsmouth, and most of the staff have other jobs.

The campus is now part of the State Department of Corrections, and we would like to thank them very much for allowing us to tape there.

Our next story is about collections.

Now most of us have collections.

We collect something: matchbooks or crystal or stamps or books or something.

But in this story we travel up to Belmont, New Hampshire, and meet a man who has a collection that will not fit on a bookshelf.

Meet Paul Barter, a man with printer's ink in his blood.

Music When I was a kid, I first had a hand press that my uncle gave me, in that picture over there.

And I just had a lot of fun with that.

And then I was studying and printing in the in the Massachusetts trade school and high school, and, and I did in grammar school, and I got very interested in it.

And then I found this equipment.

And back then you could get it for very little money.

And a lot of times, some of it was given to me.

Today it’s very scarce.

(gears clanking) I got this press in the early 70s, and it was, came out of a, a dump in Maine.

In fact, it'd been buried, but it was all there and it took about almost four years to restore it.

And as this sign says, on August 27th, 1978, I printed on it for the first for the first time for me and and the press was 100 years old.

What Paul found was a treadle-operated Curtis and Mitchell platen printing press, one of the earliest presses designed to be disassembled, boxed, and transported.

When printers were needed in the burgeoning towns of the Old West, presses like this one came with them on Conestoga wagons.

What fascinates me about them is that antiquity, the fact that they function.

A lot of antiques aren’t functional.

That these are functional and they print well.

You know, Gutenberg discovered printing in the mid-1400s, and we really didn't change much from what he was doing until after World War II.

We improved on types and we improved on inks and we improved on things like that.

But the letter press process went on for, for many, many years.

It is slowly dying now, though.

Paul's collection rivals anything you'd find in a museum and encompasses most of the equipment used by 19th century printers.

This letter press shop, circa 1870, was assembled in part from hardware once used to print the Concord Monitor.

Drawer after drawer, a wooden and foundry type were rescued from trips to the dumpster, and Paul still uses all 12 of his platen presses to print announcements, letterheads, and Christmas cards Paul says he bought this Golden Pearl for only $5 back during the Depression.

Today, it is one of only two still in existence.

The other’s in the Smithsonian.

That's her hobby, and - This press was developed as a bench style press for the printers.

You notice this is a like a portion of a bench instead of a base, like the larger press over there.

This was used in print shops to train apprentices, and it was used to do tickets and business cards and small envelopes, things like I'm doing now.

It was very handy.

And it's very unique because, being a real press, the impression or the the printing quality is excellent.

Music I think that you can’t fight progress, and and you have to learn to join with it.

One thing I've been complimented on is the fact that I have changed with the times.

And I've learned the new ways and just haven’t clung to the old ways.

I understand electronics a lot better than people a lot younger than me.

And I think we've got to ride wit the times.

But you don’t forget the past.

I think the fact that I can hand stick type and then turn around and set the same thing on a computer is commendable.

Music Paul, by the way, was associated with the Rumford Press in Concord for 38 years.

The Rumford Press, which printed oh, the Atlantic Monthly and the Saturday Review and Consumer Reports and, of course, Reader's Digest.

Paul calls his company the Four P’s, which stands for Paul's Pearl Printing Press, named of course for his prize column, Pearl Press, which is part of his collection.

Well, thank you for joining us.

Next week, we're going to travel over to Peterborough, New Hampshire, and do an interview with the great American actor James Whitmore, who back in 1947 was a member of the Peterborough Players, an actor in the company there, and he met his first wife, fell in love and got married there that summer.

And this is the first time that he has been back in 46 years.

Until then, for New Hampshire Crossroads, I’m Fritz Wetherbee.

Theme Music New Hampshire Crossroads is underwritten in part by First NH Bank, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

Clarion Somerset Hotel and Apartments of Nashua, New Hampshire, where we make living fun.

And Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Hampshire.

For over 50 years, dedicated to providing quality health benefit protection programs for employers, employees, and individuals.

Theme Music