I first met Mary Immen Hall at my book signing for my book Cows in the Fog and Other Poems and Stories in the Bennington Bookshop, Bennington, Vermont. I mentioned that I had spent three months a year a short distance from Rockwell’s studio in West Arlington. Mary and I became “fast friends” after she told me her name and that she had grown up in Arlington. She mentioned her maiden name was Immen, one familiar to me. Her father had been my parent’s real estate agent. I remember seeing his name and phone number scribbled on the old plaster wall next to our wood cook stove when I was a kid. It turned out, he did the same for the Rockwells. Mary and I got to chatting, and I soon I found myself interviewing the charming woman as the first model for my book.

Mary told me she didn’t like posing as Norman’s book cover model for Little Lord Fauntelroy because she had to dress as a boy. The classic American book is about a boy who turns out to be the heir to a British Fortune and must go live with an an unemotional British Lord and dress the part.

In the photograph above, is our Sandgate, Vermont neighbor Horace Young Jr. is the Scout carrying little Mary to safety in A Scout is Helpful. The Youngs lived perhaps two miles from us on our winding dirt road at the exit of what is called “The Notch.” Before I was born, enough rock was blasted to allow a tight hairpin turn. I remember Horace Young Sr. as a white-bearded man with about twenty brown Jersey cows in a gully. He would drive them on foot to a barn a couple miles down the road at milking time. As a kid, it was an interesting scene, like fine art, to watch Mr. Young climb to the second floor of his old, tired house on a wooden ladder leaned up against it. It stood at the foot of a Green Mountain.

It was a great honor for Mary to be chosen for Christmas Homecoming, the blonde girl, also above, because the painting features Norman’s wife and three sons and some of his dearest Arlington friends. To name a few, Grandma Moses, America’s most popular artist at the time, posed as the elderly woman. This is not long after she visited President Truman in Washington to receive an award. She lived just over the border in Eagle Bridge New York. Behind her, wearing glasses is Mrs. Crofut, who I remember as an old woman with white hair. We swam with her granddaughters at the red covered bridge across from Norman’s former home. Sharon O’Neil, daughter of our doctor Jim, posed as the twin girls. Norman used her twice.

I met the boy in front holding the hat in Christmas Homecoming, Chuckie Marsh, while writing this book, I had some nice chats with Chuck, who modeled for other paintings, such as Saturday Evening Post cover, Day in the Life of a Little Boy. Chuck has the distinction of being a favorite model of Norman’s. Norman signed Chuck’s copy of his autobiography Norman Rockwell, My Adventures as an Illustrator with the words, “To Chuck Marsh, my favorite male model.” How about that? Norman liked the fact that Chuck was a disciplined, spirited kid who could bring many different expressions to his face almost effortlessly. In other words, he was a fine actor. By the way, Chuck’s mother Ann is the woman at left holding the baby, Donnie Marsh. She was Jarvis Rockwell’s favorite schoolteacher. Most everyone in town was connected. Back then, people in a village depended on one another.

One of my favorite parts of writing Call Me Norman, Stories of Rockwell’s Beloved Models, was reminiscing with the models and reading about our community of West Arlington. I learned, in great detail, the history of the town where I have spent so much of my life.

Yes, it was a Norman Rockwell town where everyone knew everyone.

Thanks for reading. Steve