Texas Poetry

I Remember Chesterfield is a vividly recalled memoir about a way of life that no longer exists. From the 1890’s until the 1920’s, a small enclave of 50 immigrant Russian Jewish families purchased worn-out Yankee farmland in Chesterfield, Connecticut with assistance from the Baron Maurice de Hirsch Fund. Supplementing their poor livelihoods as farmers, they enterprisingly became small traders, dairymen, pants stitchers, and summer boarding house owners. If they recreated a little European stetl (italics) in turn of the century rural America, they were also fiercely determined to acculturate, and in 1892 incorporated as the New England Hebrew Farmers Association.

Savin, the oldest living great grandchild of community leader Harris Kaplan, passionately and lovingly chronicles life in Chesterfield. She recalls the halcyon days at her grandparents’ farm where she picked sun kissed blueberries, bathed in Kosofsky’s clear, cool brook, visited her Grandfather’s general store, and attended the little Chesterfield synagogue that unified the community through its traditional customs, and rituals. Although it remained a formative influence throughout her life, the Chesterfield Savin once knew knew and loved has long disappeared. In this wonderful book, but it lives again, timeless and compelling.