Marj Walters looks at the world with an artistic eye. Whether she is
handed a blank canvas, an undecorated room, a dilapidated building or a
village clock that doesn’t keep the right time, give her a chance and
she will fix it.
The canvas will come to life as a country landscape, something she
calls “rural impressions.” The room will be adorned through her efforts
as an interior decorator. She will breathe life into a 170 year old
farm house. She can rally a community together to restore an old
village clock to its heyday.
Marj Walters is a visionary. A doer. Someone who, when others are asking “why bother,” she asks simply, “why not?”
It’s hard to get her to talk about herself, she would much rather
steer the conversation back to the next few projects she has simmering
on the back burner.
“I like to keep busy,” she said, as she spoke about things she sees
that need to be saved, restored or revitalized, namely Baker’s Beach
and the old railroad bed that leads into the village and ends up by the
Schuyler House.
“The ties have been picked up, but it would make a great walking
path, and it leads right into the village. It would be perfect,” she
said.
However, her vision has a kink in it, or rather, a proposed patch of
asphalt in it, as a small part of the railroad line is planned to be
paved over with the construction of the proposed business park. “If
they could just move the entrance away from the railroad lines. There
is another entrance, why can’t they use that?”
There’s that “why” word again. And it comes up over and over
regarding Baker’s Beach. Why can’t it be renovated? Why isn’t it being
used? Why can’t we have summer programs?
In 1965, Walters and her family began traveling from New Jersey to
spend their summers in Richfield Springs, and 20 years later, they
moved in full time. “I’ve just come to love this place so well.
Researching its history was like going back to school,” she said.
“How sad it must have been to live here during that era when they
tore down the hotels,” she said, talking about the demise of the
village, which once bustled as a major tourist area. “They used to have
horse races, concerts, the skating rink, a movie theater.”
Although she wasn’t around to try to save the hotels or rink,
Walters did try to save the movie theater. “Wouldn’t it have been great
to have a little movie theater here? That’s what we need, an old time
movie theater,” she said, smiling, momentarily lost in borrowed
memories of yesteryear.
“I just want people to realize what they have, what they could have,
and to make an effort to try and save it,” Walters said, “I wish I
could keep as much as possible that we have left. Like the old bank.
That used to be a wonderful restaurant, now it’s just sitting there,
empty.”
Unlike the old bank, Walters’ life has been anything but empty. From
owning her own interior design business in the late 1950s, to running
art galleries and historical societies and having her own art show, to
now currently serving on the town of Richfield’s Zoning Board of
Appeals, Walters always finds something to do.
Soon after moving to Richfield Springs full time, she began working
at the Cooperstown Art Association. Here, she helped organize
year-round shows, as opposed to their practice of one summer show a
year. She also renovated the gallery and created a sales area for
artists to sell their artwork. Later on, through efforts with the
Richfield Springs Area Improvement Association, she worked with Don
Finner who created the swans floating in the pond on Route 20 by the
New York State Troopers headquarters.
The Bakers Dozen was a community group she helped form to serve as a
committee to Baker’s Beach. Even after a $12,000 grant was declined by
the town, Walters said programs continued at the beach. “Music
festivals, children’s programs, young artists group, theater
productions,” were all a part of the Baker’s Beach, she said. Now, the
building has sat empty since 2003, with only the Lake Association
holding monthly meetings there, she pointed out.
Her love of history and art can be traced back through her parents’
family heritage. Her father’s family founded Flushing, Queens, back in
1621, with the construction of the Bowne House. One of her ancestors,
John Burroughs, was a well known naturalist who wrote many articles
about preserving the wildlife in America. “He was one of our first
environmentalists, even before there was such a word,” she said.
On her mother’s side, Walters said her family came from Germany,
where one of her relatives was a great artist who painted murals.
“I come from a family of preservationists,” she added. “History, the environment. It all blends together.”
|