Discovering Pleasant Rowland
I first became aware of American Girl Dolls in 1998. As Liesel started
reading the stories, she fell in love with the dolls and the whole
American Girl environment. Liesel's friend Taffy told her about the
exceptional woman named Pleasant Rowland who founded and ran Pleasant
Company and that Pleasant Company is where the American Girl things come
from. As Liesel continued to delight in all that was American Girl, I
came to feel that Pleasant Rowland must be a woman of uncommonly kind
heart and good nature.
It came as a shock when I learned that Pleasant Rowland had sold her
company and the American Girl products to one of the huge multinational
toy companies. I was convinced that the quality of American Girl would
suffer and the changes to the line, which followed, seemed to bear that
out. Unfortunately my thinking on the nature of Pleasant Rowland started
to change; I started to think of her as betraying the girls who love
American Girl.
In 2003 I became aware of a combination art studio and pottery company
named MacKenzie - Childs. Since they are located nearby in Aurora New
York, I traveled there to see what I could see. MacKenzie - Childs is a
marvel situated on what was a 19th century dairy farm on the east side
of Cayuga Lake. While there, I learned that MacKenzie - Childs had come
very close to financial ruin. Pleasant Rowland came to their rescue and
the people I talked to at MacKenzie - Childs credited her with the
marvelous result I saw that day. They also told me that she was working
with Wells College. Wells is also located in Aurora and like most of
Aurora had been in decline. In light of my experience that day I had
to re-examine what kind of person Pleasant Rowland might be. These
revelations belied the image of a woman motivated mainly by profit that
I had started to form of her.
In the Summer of 2004 I visited MacKenzie - Childs again and as usual
stopped at the Aurora Inn to eat. I had been to the Aurora Inn on two
prior occasions, but this time on a table set out with information on
local points of interest, I found a single page. As I read that page I
was filled with happiness; happy to know that my original impression of
Pleasant Rowland had been correct. That page is titled: "Remarks made by
Pleasant T. Rowland at the ribbon - cutting ceremony for the reopening of
the Aurora Inn May 29, 2003." On further conversation with local people
and other reading I have found that Pleasant Rowland is working hard and
investing in the revitalization of many landmarks and institutions in
Aurora. That single page is not copyrighted so I will share the complete
text with you here. I think it provides excellent insight into who
Pleasant Rowland is.
Remarks made by
Pleasant T. Rowland
at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for
the reopening of the
Aurora Inn
May 29, 2003
This evening we gather to honor a special place and to reflect on the
power of place to mark us for life. That place is Aurora, called
"village of constant dawn" by the Indians who lived here, drawn to it
first, I suspect, for its physical attributes-for the high ridge that
protects it on the east and rolls gently down to its slight but
sheltering cove at the widest part of a long, straight lake that is deep
and clear. Drawn to it for the beauty of its sunsets that blaze over the
hills of the western horizion, and for the dawn that washes the morning
sky with endless sweet light and the promise of a glorious day to come.
Indian lore has it that the Finger Lakes resulted when the High Spirit
laid his hand upon the earth in a final benediction of all he had
created, blessing this place above all with natural beauty and bounty.
All of us who have come here since are touched by the generosity of that
creation.
The early settlers, who came here at the end of the 18th century, cleared
the gentle slopes for pastures and farm fields, but left the deep ravines
heavily wooded and alive with streams and water falls. Close behind the
farmers came entrepreneurs, men of energy and vision who founded banks and
newspapers, grist mills and mercantile stores, shipping lines and express
companies to take the bounty of the farms and forests to cities far away
from this stop on the Erie Canal. With them they brought the cultural
aspirations of their time. Progressive thinkers, gifted architects and
diligent scholars with reverence for the order and ideas of ancient Greece
and Rome, they named our village "Aurora" after the Greek goddess of the
dawn. Here they built fine homes and public buildings, law offices and a
Masonic lodge, churches and schools, and a handsome inn to welcome weary
travelers. And here they founded a college, but a college unlike most of
its time, for it would educate women. Envisioned by Henry Wells and funded
primarily by his good friend, Edwin Morgan, Wells College gave to Aurora
one of its most distinguishing attributes and enduring legacies.
Over time, trains would displace the transport of goods along the Erie
Canal, the county seat would be settled in nearby Auburn and Aurora's
entrepreneurial aspirations of commercial prosperity and prominence
dwindled. But for the next 150 years, women from all over our growing
nation would be drawn to this tiny, gentle village to attend the college
that flourished here. They found exactly what Henry Wells envisioned for
them: "a college home," a place of intellectual stimulation where they were
taught by the college motto to share the riches of their experience in
Aurora with the world beyond its rural boundaries.
Nearly a century after Wells was founded, I was one of those women who
made my way to this small college and to this tiny village. The four
years I spent here changed me forever. First, of course, in the obvious
ways that college changes everyone, by opening my mind to new ideas and
my life to new people. But in another, deeper way, my heart was touched
by the timeless remove of this place, far from the hustle and bustle of
the world beyond. Something in my soul craved its quiet beauty, the golden
dappled shade of the ancient elms that arched over Main Street, the
somnolent air of warm autumn afternoons as shadows fell across the broad
lawns. The rosy brick buildings, some modest, some grand, that had stood
so proud for so long, satisfied some inner need for roots that went deep
into time. I loved the portraits that hung in the college of early deans
and presidents, of founders and benefactors whose sober faces reminded me
of the long chain of caring people who had lived their lives here, who held
high aspirations for this place and for those who would come here. And "here"
was not just the college, but the village too, for the two have always been
inextricably linked in my mind and heart--Wells and Aurora, Aurora and Wells.
Reminders of the values and traditions of another, more tender time.
When I left Aurora in 1962, I was eager to go into the world beyond, anxious
to take the gifts I had been given and put them to use. I was well prepared
and thrived in the hurly-burly of that world-in journalism and education and
commerce. Caught up in the adventures of life, I did not return to Aurora for
decades. It was a piece of my past tucked safely away, I thought. But that
was before I realized how much a part of me that past was, how deep in my
consciousness this place and all it represented had been driven.
When I came back nearly twenty-five years after graduating, my heart
quickened unexpectedly when I saw from the hilltop south of town, the red bell
tower of Wells break through the canopy of trees. As I descended into the
village, I knew that I had come home again. Here was a place seemingly
unchanged, redolent with memories of my own past days in Aurora. But now I was
more deeply moved by an awareness of its long history and had a greater
appreciation of the values and wisdom, the taste and judgment of its early
founders and settlers. It seemed to me then that if God's glory was expressed
in the natural beauty of Aurora, man's glory was expressed in its handsome old
buildings, the living legacy of a gracious past, a place of gentility, rare in
the world as I had come to know it. Aurora was a very special place, indeed--- a
treasure to protect.
The journey from that moment to this one spanned 15 years, but throughout, my
love of this place, its history and traditions, its beauty and bounty has
remained unchanged. Perhaps knowing all of this will help you understand why I
have given this gift of restoration to Aurora and to Wells. Forty-five years ago,
I came here seeking an education of the mind. I left with an education of the
heart. And this gift to Wells, to Aurora, to all of you, and to future
generations comes from my heart. It is given in gratitude for the settlers of
this village and the founders of this college-the ancestors of Aurora who
bequeathed us all such a rich legacy. It has been my privilege, my joy and pride
to restore the glory of this most special place in their honor.
----------~~~~----------
With the exception of "Remarks made by Pleasant T. Rowland at the ribbon -
cutting ceremony for the reopening of the Aurora Inn May 29, 2003"
Copyright © by Liesel Siobhan
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