Newsletter
February 2015
Phone: 508-564-7543
PO Box 435, Falmouth, MA 02541
www.neighborhoodfalmouth.org
DATES TO REMEMBER
Meet for Breakfast: February 9
Our monthly Meet for Breakfast is Monday, February 9, at Friendly’s at 9:00 a.m. All are welcome.
We order from the menu, and separate checks are
provided. Please call the office if you need a ride or
to reserve a place. We’d love to see you!
Meet for Lunch: February 11
In January, 17 NF members and volunteers
gathered for lunch! This month we’ll meet at the
Silver Lounge on Wednesday, February 11, at
11:45 a.m. We order from the menu, and separate
checks are provided. Please call the office if you
need a ride or to reserve a place. All are welcome!
NF Book Club: February 18
We'll be meeting on Wednesday, February 18, at
2:30 p.m. at the Main Falmouth Library. The book
is Lisette's List by Susan Vreeland. We've also
chosen The Boys in the Boat by Daniel Brown and
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd for
March and April, respectively. Newcomers are welcome!
A Message from
NF Volunteer Peter Schwamb
Again this year, I’m offering dryer vent
cleanouts and battery changes for smoke
and carbon monoxide detectors. (I only
ask for reimbursement of the cost of the
batteries and other materials I bring.)
Please let the NF office know if you
would like to take advantage of this offier,
and together you and I can schedule a
mutually agreeable time.
Christiane Collins busy at her desk.
A Profile of
NF Member Christiane Crasemann Collins
By Pamela Nelson
The fascinating saga of NF member
Christiane Crasemann Collins’s family begins in
the early nineteenth century with clipper ships and
the birth of a trading company in Chile. Her forebears moved from the free Hanseatic city of Hamburg to Valparaiso in 1820, establishing an importexport business and also setting up a successful
shipping trade route between Hamburg, San Francisco, and Chile. One of their clipper ships was the
Christiane, and a reproduction of a painting of that
vessel hangs in her Falmouth house.
Christiane’s father was a partner in the family’s
flourishing business. The children grew up bilingual
in German and Spanish, and Christiane added
English at the age of 10. (She is fluent in all three
languages, able to write, speak, and lecture in
them interchangeably. She does not consider her
language ability at all remarkable, commenting,
“Some people are musical. I am adept at languages.”) The children attended a bilingual Ger-
man high school near their home in Chile. The
school was controlled by the Nazi government at
that time, and the students were expected to perform the Nazi salute and repeat Hitler quotations in
the weekly assemblies. Two years before she was
to finish high school, Christiane, deeply offended
by the overt anti-Semitism and Nazi propaganda,
dropped out of school, with her father’s approval.
His only admonition was that he did not want to
hear her complaining of boredom.
Two years later, at age 20, Christiane enrolled
at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Her
older brother had attended Carleton briefly before
transferring to UCLA and Berkeley. Arriving at the
college and going to the registration desk, she was
asked how she intended to pay the $1,200 tuition.
It was with immense relief that she pulled, from her
pocket a large packet of money, covering the entire
tuition bill. Given to her by her father prior to her
departure from Chile, she was carrying it in her
coat pocket when she disembarked in Mobile, and
kept it under her mattress while visiting her aunt’s
family in Dubuque the summer before school
started. The registrar, needless to say, was astounded. “Please count it,” said the new student. “I
want to be certain my father gave me the correct
amount.”
Christiane finished college in three years, majoring in art history. She then enrolled at Columbia
University, embarking on a master’s degree program. Before completing her dissertation, she had
fallen in love with and married George Collins, a
faculty member in the art history department. He
had a two-year-old son, whose mother had died.
She recalls, “David used to say that ‘Dad and I
married Mom when I was two’”! Christiane and
George later had two more sons. It was a huge
learning experience for her, since she had not
been trained to cook or keep house. However, she
did complete her master’s degree and began writing with her husband in his areas of interest, the
history of architecture and city planning, fields she
enthusiastically embraced.
When the youngest son finally was in elementary school, she approached the chairman of the
art history department about undertaking a Ph.D.
He replied that she had three sons to raise and a
husband to publish alongside, and turned her down
for the Ph.D. program. It was 1954.
Furious, Christiane instead obtained a degree in
library science. First, she worked for a year at the
Museum of Modern Art. Then, the dean of the Parsons School of Design asked her to design a library for Parsons that would appeal to students
and faculty. At the dean’s suggestion, she made a
(continued on the next page)
FEBRUARY CULTURE CLUB
Enjoy the cultural life of Falmouth with help from
NF! Many of our volunteers are already planning to
go to these and other activities around town. If
you’d like to go too, we’d love to get you a ride and
give you a friendly person to sit with. Please call
the office to learn more.
“Arsenic and Old Lace” by Theatre Guild
Weekends January 30 to February 8
The Falmouth Theatre Guild presents "Arsenic and
Old Lace" at Highfield Theater, Fridays at 7:30
p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m.
Tickets are $20 for adults, $16 for children under
18, and $18 for seniors 62 and over. Purchase
tickets at the door or online at
falmouththeatreguild.org. For more information, call
(508) 548-0400.
Geostrophic String Quartet Concert
Sunday, February 8, 2:00 P.M.
Woods Hole Public Library
Bill Simmons and his talented quartet present
pieces by Mozart, Richter, and Schumann.
Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for students, and
are available in advance at the Woods Hole Library, Eight Cousins, and the Bank of Woods Hole.
Lecture by Author Barbara Berenson on her
book Boston and The Civil War
Wednesday, February 11, 4:00 P.M.
Falmouth Museums on the Green
Boston’s black and white abolitionists forged a
second American revolution dedicated to ending
slavery and honoring the promise of liberty in the
Declaration of Independence. The all-black Fiftyfourth Massachusetts Regiment battled against
both slavery and discrimination, while Boston’s
women fought against slavery and for their own
right to be full citizens of the Union.
Tickets are $5 Members, $8 Non Members
Woods Hole Film Festive Dinner and a Movie
Friday, February 28, Dinner 5:45 P.M.
Quicks Hole Tavern in Woods Hole hosts dinner
(prix fixe menu) at 5:45 followed by a screening at
7:30 at Redfield Auditorium, a short walk down the
street. Reservations are required for both dinner
and the screening. The night’s feature documentary is The Longest Game, about a group of elderly
friends who gather every day in the village of Dorset, VT, to play paddle tennis. For more information, call (508) 495-3456.
Writing Workshop
Second and Fourth Saturdays, 12:00 - 3:00 p.m.
Falmouth Library
New NF member and published author Madeleine
Felker leads an ongoing writing workshop for
fiction, nonfiction, and memoir writers. Writers can
read their work, get feedback, and share marketing
ideas. Free, but registration is required at
[email protected] or by calling (508)
540-1040.
January Winter Gathering A Success
th
NF members and volunteers enjoy the Jan 24 Annual Winter
Gathering at the Congregational Church Fellowship Hall.
Many NF members and volunteers braved the
slushy weather to come to the Annual Winter
Gathering. Filled with good food and good company, these lunch gatherings happen twice yearly,
and we hope we will entice you to attend the next
one in the fall.
_______________________________________
We gratefully acknowledge support from:
Amy Rader, Photographer
Bank of Cape Cod
Falmouth Wine & Spirits
Janney Montgomery Scott
John’s Liquor Store
Lawrence Lynch Corporation
Locust Street Sign Company
Recovery Without Walls
Stop & Shop Companies, Inc.
Waterbury Optometry
Windfall Market & Windfall Florals
Wood Lumber Company
Woods Hole Foundation
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Christiane Collins continued
tour of small New England college libraries to
gather ideas. She decided to accept the position
and remained employed there for 15 years. By
1962, the salary enabled her to buy the summer
house in Falmouth where she now lives yearround. She also continued to pursue other
interests, at one point with the help of a Fulbright,
in Graz, Austria. A major scholarly focus has been
the transfer and interchange of urban planning
ideas between South America, Europe, and the
United States. “My field has been the history of urban planning and architecture. I’ve published considerably and given many lectures—in Venice, Vienna, Barcelona, San Francisco, Buenos Aires,
and at Harvard. But never have I been invited to
lecture in Woods Hole!”
In 1982, when George was 65, he developed
early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. At that time, it
was not the common diagnosis that it is today.
Christiane did her best to look after him and continue to work, including doing the research for her
book on Werner Hegemann, (published at last in
2006 as Werner Hegemann and the Search for
Universal Urbanism.) After five difficult years, her
sons convinced her to place their father in a nursing home for special care. To encourage her to relinquish his care, Christiane’s sons told her that
they could manage with one demented parent, but
not with two, as they perceived the toll that caring
for their father was taking on her. George died six
years later, in 1993, at the Royal Nursing Home on
Main Street in Falmouth.
That year turned out to be particularly difficult,
as Christiane’s mother also died in 1993. She had
to clear out the apartment in Manhattan where she
and George had raised their sons, and also to help
her brother in Chile settle their parents’ affairs. In
that same year, she made the final move to Falmouth as her primary residence.
Living on the Cape has suited Christiane’s temperament well, and she has been able to pursue
some of her environmental interests. In 2014, she
joined Neighborhood Falmouth, although she has
yet to decide how membership will mesh with her
life. Finding someone to take her to and from evening meetings and events would be helpful, now
that she has given up driving after dark. Supported
by a cadre of friends and long-time relationships
with tradesmen, as well as Neighborhood Falmouth, Christiane is enjoying her solitude and taking advantage of her proximity to the natural
beauty that surrounds her.