“I love old houses, and I love Mrs. Eddy,” says Keevin Schier. “I’ve long thought that if there was anything I could do to help Longyear, I’d love to do it, but living in the Chicago area, I figured how could I possibly help?”
Keevin, a property manager who buys and restores old houses, finally got his opportunity recently, when he received a call from fellow Chicagoan and chairman of the Longyear Board of Trustees Carla Stillman.
“Carla called me and said, ‘There’s a need, and we’re wondering if you’re still interested?’” Keevin assured her that he was, and she put him in touch with John Alioto, Longyear’s Facilities Manager.
Repairing part of the barn roof and eaves at the Mary Baker Eddy historic house in Rumney, New Hampshire, was on this year’s project list, John told him, and after determining from their phone interview that Keevin was a skilled craftsman genuinely interested in supporting Longyear’s mission, he invited him to help.
Meanwhile, Keevin had lunch with his friend and fellow church member Roger Messman, and while telling him about the project he noticed that Roger seemed interested. “His eyebrows shot up!” Keevin recalls with a laugh. “I asked him if he wanted to go, too?”
“I had some skills and, like Keevin, a deep love for Mrs. Eddy,” says Roger, a retired high school math teacher with extensive woodworking experience. “I said absolutely!”
Soon, both men were on the road to New England. They met up with John Alioto in Rumney on a Monday morning in October, and spent the next four days working together on the repairs.
“I can remember when I was a contractor in the Boston area, and I did my first job for Longyear,” says John. “My first job was repairing some rotted wood at the Stoughton house, and I can still recall the thrill of standing there and realizing that Mrs. Eddy had lived here, and that she’d worked on some early writings that ultimately found their way into Science and Health. So I could well imagine how Roger and Keevin felt!”
While both volunteers had carpentry skills, neither was familiar with historic preservation.
“I had to explain that we preserve as much of the original material as possible,” says John. “Instead of simply replacing rotted boards, for instance, we cut the rotted part off and carefully measure and piece in new material. It takes a lot of patience.”
As part of historic preservation best practices, John points out, copper tags were added, documenting the work that had been done. “This is so that 50 years from now, people can see that this was rebuilt on a particular date.”
Over the course of the week, the three men quickly became friends.
“It’s so touching to think of two people who would drive a thousand miles and volunteer their time to help repair one of Mrs. Eddy’s homes,” says John, who gave Keevin and Roger an in-depth “basement to cupola” tour of 400 Beacon Street as a thank you (they also visited Mrs. Eddy’s home in North Groton, New Hampshire). “They made a definite and very meaningful contribution to Longyear, cutting the project time in half.”
If there’s any doubt about the team-bonding that occurred, John confides that the three of them are already planning next fall’s project.
As Keevin says, “If you have a talent that you can share, don’t bury it, do what Jesus admonished us to do — put it to work.”
Would you like to volunteer for Longyear? Let us know by emailing letters@longyear.org!