Photo by Rob Wills, The Northfield News Nancy Berini works to restore a 1933 Northfield theater curtain at the Historical Society. Also working with her is, Kay Schleuter, second from right, curator of the Northfield Historical Society. Present from the Vermont Theater Curtain Project are Peter Isles, Wylie Garcia and Michele Pagam Northfield is lucky to have two rare theater curtains which belong to the Northfield Historical Society.

One has been hanging on the wall of the Community Room at the Brown Public Library for several years.

The other one had been in the basement of Kingston's Funeral Home for many years and given to historical society recently.

Both curtains have been completely cleaned and restored by the Vermont Painted Theater Curtain project.

The curtain which has been hanging in the community room for several years is a former Northfield Grange Hall curtain by Anderson Scenic Company of Buffalo, N.Y. It was painted between 1925 and 1930. An almost identical curtain hangs in East Braintree with ads from the Randolph area.

The other curtain was made by A.S. Ives in 1932. His studio was in Hillsboro, N.H.

Where it was hung is not currently known but Norwich University is one of the main sponsors of the curtain.

It may have hung in the dance hall in the Odd Fellows Block or on the high school stage but that is not certain.

The historical society would be interested in anyone who might be able to shed light on where the curtain did hang.

The central scene says that it shows Camel's Hump but the picture in the center is generic surrounded by ads from an large number of Northfield businesses.

The restoration has been made possible by a grant from the Curtain Project to the Northfield Historical Society and additional funds which were added to that grant by the historical society itself.

The Project began in 1996 with a survey to find and assess the condition of Vermont's collection of historic theater curtains.

As of June 2009, 155 curtains have been cleaned, mended and judiciously in-painted.

About 120 of these have been installed for use on their home stages in town halls, grange halls, community theaters, and opera houses.

Vermont is the first state to pay attention to these reminders of a time when every small town was visited by traveling troupes of players, opera companies, vaudeville, and itinerant musicians.

Between 1880 and 1940, curtains like these were produced in other states, but it seems that the great majority were discarded as they became worn and dirty and as tastes changed. However, in Vermont, many curtains were simply bundled up with baling twine or stashed in ceiling crawl spaces or shoved under the stage.

By bringing the curtains back into use, it is a rejuvenation of small town performance and meeting spaces and has resulted in an increase of local theater and the re-use of town hall for town meeting said spokespersons from the project.

A group from the theater curtain project brought their wisdom and tools to help with the restoration