Friends of the H. L. Mencken House

10th F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Conference to be Held in Baltimore

The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society will assemble at the Radisson Plaza Lord Baltimore (Baltimore, MD) for its 10th International Conference which runs from 2009-09-30 through 2009-10-03.

Participants have an opportunity to take a bus tour of various points of interest to Fitzgeraldians incliding the H. L. Mencken House on Hollist Street.

In Memoriam: Robert J. Thieblot, 1933-2009

Robert Jean Thieblot, 76, former president of the Friends of the H. L. Mencken House, attorney, and author died of cancer at his home on Park Avenue, in the Bolton Hill section of Baltimore, on Thursday, April 16.

Surviving him are his wife of 50 years, Suzanna Cohoes Thieblot, his daughter, Aline Thieblot Walker of Glen Burnie, and his brother Armand Jean Thieblot of Baltimore.

A memorial gathering will be held Thursday, May 14, 2009, at 5 p.m., at the Bar Library Company of Baltimore, Room 618 of the Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. Courthouse, 111 North Calvert St. (Fayette and Calvert streets).

Christmas Cookie Tour

An estimated three-hundred-fifty people visited the Mencken House for the Union Square Christmas Cookie Tour on December 14.

Thanks to: Phil Hildebrandt, Oleg Panczenko, John Dausch, Fred Reinholdt, Calvin Kobsa, Richard Pickens and Marcella Cordero.

Mencken House Open for Union Square’s Christmas Cookie Tour

The Mencken House will be open Sunday, 2008-12-14 from 12:00-17:00 as part of the Union Square Christmas Cookie Tour 23. Admission to the Mencken House free. You must purchase a ticket if you wish to visit the other houses which are part of the tour.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Saturday, December 6, a group of volunteers prepared the Mencken House for the annual Union Square Christmas Cookie Tour by sweeping, wiping, decorating and raking, as appropriate.

As an adult, Mr Mencken did not celebrate the holiday at Hollins Street: “I detest Christmas, and never observe it” (Bode 1977, p. 207). But we here harken to the happier days of his childhood, as related in Happy Days.

The Mencken children visited their grandparents on Fayette Street on Christmas morning to pay their respects and receive their presents. Each year one of the children received a wagon which they used “to haul the other things home.” There was no shortage of good things to eat, either. “After taking aboard a suitable refreshment of Pfeffernüsse, Springlel, Lebkuchen and other carbohydrates, and stuffing our pockets with almonds, butternuts, walnuts, candy and fruit, we loaded our cargo and started home at a run, yelling and cavorting along the way.”

Thanks to: Phil Hildebrandt, Richard Pickens, Oleg Panczenko, Fred Reinholdt (show in picture) and Michael Slade.

Mencken House Front Doors to Be Restored

Visitors and passers-by may notice something out-of-sorts with the Mencken House. The keen ones will decide that the front doors are not right and they will be correct.

The doors of the Mencken House have been removed for restoration and will be gone for several weeks.

Why will the doors be missing for so long? Because restoration takes time. Consider what will be done:

Chemically remove the old paint down to bare wood:

Why are other common techniques for removing paint not used?

Once the paint is removed, damaged and rotted wood has to be repaired; holes, gouges and other imperfections have to be filled with expoxy. Epoxy has to be applied in layers, with each layer thoroughly drying before the next is applied. Pieces which cannot be repaired have to be duplicated and replaced.

The door is sanded and smoothed and the surface physically prepared for painting.

The wood is painted with a primer then one or more coats of paint are applied. Since the door is being restored, a historically correct paint is preferred.

Mencken Open House Draws Over Fifty Visitors

The Mencken House saw a solid turnout Sunday, September 14, when it was opened to the public. Though still empty of its furniture, three new period images were put on display, two showing the interior of the house during Mr Mencken’s time and one showing the back yard and garden in 1928.

Many thanks to: John Dausch, Phil Hildebrandt, Oleg Panczenko, Richard Pickens and Fred Reinholdt

The Mencken house is closed to the public but may be seen by appointment.

Mencken House Open to the Public, 2008-09-14

As part of the celebration of Mr Mencken’s 128th birthday (September 12), the Mencken House will be open from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM Sunday, September 14. Snacks (sourdough and pumperinckel pretzels, hot mustard, cookies, smoked oysters and Schwabentopf cucumber pickles) and refresments (beer, cheap German wine and soft drinks) will be available. The event is free.

Mr Mencken Remarks On His House

“I have lived in one house for 40 years. It has changed in that time, as I have—but somehow it still remains the same. No conceivable decorator’s masterpiece could give me the same ease. It is as much a part of me as my two hands. If I had to leave it, I’d be as certainly crippled as if I lost both legs.”
On Living In Baltimore (Sun (E), 1925-02-16).

Mencken House Clarification

From the Washington Post, “Letters from Readers”, 2008-06-01, p. N06:

I was delighted to see that you selected “Sage Scribe H.L. Mencken’s Baltimore” for your informative May 4 “Road Trip” column. One thing must be clarified, though, for the benefit of your readers. “Efforts to resurrect” Mr. Mencken’s splendid 1883 rowhouse “as a museum” certainly have not “all but fallen by the wayside.” Quite the opposite, actually.

The city of Baltimore has owned the house for 25 years. For the first 10 or so, the house and its garden were open to the public as a most interesting museum. The city is now committed to opening it once again. Our not-for-profit organization, the Society to Preserve H.L. Mencken’s Legacy, was formed for that specific purpose. And we expect to complete shortly our agreement with the city to do just that. Then we will raise the funds needed to renovate and rehabilitate the house in a historically accurate manner.

Mr. Mencken lived at 1524 Hollins St. for all but a few of his 75 years. His beloved house was, he said, “as much a part of me as my two hands.” It is individually listed as a landmark on the National Register of Historic Places. Union Square, which it faces, is a historic district on the register.

The permanent endowment to support the House and its projects and programs now stands at $2.5 million. So the future of the house and museum could not be brighter, a fitting legacy for the man Walter Lippmann singled out in 1926 as “the most powerful personal influence on this whole generation of educated people.”

—Henry R. Lord, president, Society to Preserve H.L. Mencken’s Legacy

Note: The Friends of the H. L. Mencken House are working very closely with the Society to Preserve H.L. Mencken’s Legacy.

Mencken House reopening effort vigorous but subdued

The Washington Post recently ran an article in the “Road Trip” column, “Sage Scribe H.L. Mencken’s Baltimore” (2008-05-04, p. N06), which incorrectly stated that “efforts to resurrect the Mencken House as a museum have all but fallen by the wayside.” The reporter cannot be faulted for thinking so, as the effort to reopen the House is low-keyed and slow. But the effort indeed continues. “We ain’t dead yet. We ain’t even feeling bad.”

Third Annual Mencken Memorial Service Draws A Small But Devoted Crowd

2008-01-27—Five individuals braved a cool, sunny day to pay their respects to the memory of Mr Mencken at his gravisite in Loudon Park Cemetery, Baltimore.

The attendees discovered that some unknown admirer (or admirers) of Mr Mencken left a Christmas wreath ornamented with cigars crossed and tied with red yarn to make crosses was left near the foot of the ledger-style gravestone where Mr Mencken’s ashes are buried.

In his memorial, Mr Panczenko said that never would Mr Mencken think of apologizing for expressing what was on his mind. Eighty-three years into Mencken’s future, not a thing worth hearing can be said without offending somebody. Our ‘chattering classes’ have, through great discipline, rendered themselves incapable of what George Orwell called “crimethink,” the expressing in plain words of “what is in front of your nose.” In the spirit of Mr Mencken, we should not parse what we honestly intend to say for what might offend somebody but speak what we think and to the detractors say ‘be offended and be damned’.

Attending the service were John Dausch, Phil Hildebrandt. Oleg Panczenko, Fred Reinholdt and his son, Max Mencken Reinholdt. Mr Dausch placed flowers on the gravestone.

Third Annual Mencken Memorial Service

The Third Annual Mencken Memorial Service will be conducted on January 27, 2008 at 1:00 PM, at the Mencken Family gravesite at Loudon Park cemetery, 3620 Wilkens Avenue, Baltimore, MD.

Directions to the gravesite are available on a web page or in a pdf file.

Goucher College Students Visit Mencken House

On 2008-01-16, thirty students under Edward Worteck and Professor John Boughton, all from Goucher College, were conducted on a room-by-room tour of the Mencken House by Marion Rodgers. Afterwards all were treated to hot cinnamon-spiced apple cider, pfefferneusse and sourdough pretzels.

Thanks to Oleg Panczenko for being floor manager, waiter, janitor and all-around grunt.

Mencken House Receives 245 Visitors During Cookie Tour

Visitors arrived at a comfortable pace at the Mencken House during Sunday’s (12-09) Union Square Cookie Tour. They were treated to pfeffeneusse, sourdough pretzels and hot cider flavored with cinnamon.

Our thanks to: Richard Pickens, John Dausch, Oleg Panczenko, Ray King, Diane Ascher, Austin Twigg and Phil Hildebrandt.

Mencken House Open For Cookie Tour

The Mencken House will be open for the 22^nd annual Union Square Christmas Cookie Tour this Sunday, December 9, from noon until 5:00PM. Admission to the Mencken House only is free. Those wishing to visit the other homes on the Tour must purchase tickets, $17 each, and available at 1401 Hollins St (old Pratt Library No. 2).

New Mailing Address

Our new mailing address is:

Friends of the H. L. Mencken House
PO Box 4493
Baltimore, MD 21223-0493

Lake Woebegone at the Mencken House

Garrison Keillor is a Mencken fan. He had visited the House years ago when it was still open as part of the City Life Museums.

In town to read from his latest book, Pontoon, at the Enoch Pratt Free Library on Sunday, October 14, he stopped by the House on Monday morning. His tour-guide was Mencken biographer Marion Rodgers who prsented Mr Keillor with a copy of her The Impossible H. L. Mencken.

In the afternoon, from 1:00PM to 2:00PM, Mr Keillor was interviewed by Marc Steiner on WYPR (88.1 FM).

MENCKEN HOUSE OPEN FOR DER TAG WEEKEND

The Mencken House was open from 10:00AM to 2:00PM on September 14, the day after the annual Mencken Day celebration. Twenty-five people visited the House.

Many thanks to: John Dausch, Brigitta Fessenden, Calvin Kobsa, Oleg Panczenko and Richard Pickens.

ATTEMPTED BREAK-IN AT MENCKEN HOUSE

Sometime before 6:25 AM on September 14, when the piercingly loud alarm at the house was triggered, an industrious intruder was working to get into the home of The Sage of Baltimore. The intruder had carefully removed the moulding around the pane of glass closest to the doorknob of the breezeway door on the east side of the house and placed the pieces neatly in a pile against the wooden fence. Next to the pieces, police found the pane of glass neatly leaning against the fence.

Phil Hidlebrandt of the Friends responed to the alarm company’s call and was at the House at 6:30 AM. There was nothing to du but have the police file a report and make repairs.

POOR OLD AUGUST

We mean August Mencken, HLM’s younger brother. Most people who know anything at all about him know that HLM was his older brother and that he was an engineer. August took care of Henry after the latter’s stoke and also shared the house with him for many years. He deserves a little more consideration that he has been getting.

We offer his obituary from the Evening Sun.

MENCKEN HOUSE TO BE OPEN ON DER TAG 2007

More to come.

MENCKEN FAMILY HEADSTONE UPRIGHTED

Thanks to Loudon Park and a great deal of persistence by Oleg Panczenko, the Mencken Faily headstones have been uprighted.

MENCKEN FAMILY PLOT VANDALIZED

On 2006-01-29, visitors to the Mencken gravesite found that three headstones at the Mencken family plot have been pushed over: those of Caroline and Burkard L[udwig] Mencken (HLM’s grandmother and grandfather) and Arthur B. Mencken (whom we’ve not been able to identify; his dates are June 22, 1886–December 28, 1912). Mr Mencken’s ashes lie under the ledger-type stone at the viewer’s right. The stone to the left marked “Henry” marks Uncle Henry’s spot. The Friends have requested Loudon Park to right the headstones.