Photographs by the Howes brothers and Jason Stemple. Though their subjects' air of stoicism may be due to the tediousness of picture taking in the 1800's, any homeowner will identify with the poses of folks positioning themselves like sentinels between their homes and the forces of nature. Jane Yolen, herself a Hatfield resident, and her photographer son, Jason Stemple, have created a provocative look at the relationship between past and present by juxtaposing the Howeses' photographs with color photographs of the same houses taken a century later. I recognize what they have done.
Old houses are family sagas set on stone foundations, waiting to be told.
I searched for clues of past lives in every corner of an old farmhouse not far from Hatfield. The children played war games in its dirt cellar, robins hatched on its windowsills and squirrels ran between its walls to nest in the attic. While they carelessly claimed the house, the house claimed me. Yolen, a prolific and accomplished writer, knows better than to compete with the eloquence of those photographs. Above her text the houses seem ready to burst with stories.