SUNDAY SITDOWN Dispatch Article
May 29, 2011
Lisa Lewis: She’s a 19th Century woman
Her book, ‘The Fashionable Victorians,’ will be out in 2012
With Jack Smiles
Lisa Lewis lives in West Pittston with John Thomas Grant who is also her business partner in The Passion Project.
She was born in Wilkes-Barre and lived there until the flood of 1972, when her family moved to the Pittston area. She graduated from Pittston Area in 1982. She graduated from LCCC with a degree in commercial art.
Eventually she carved out a business niche for herself as The Victoriana Lady, reenacting a Victorian era woman and conducting programs on Victorian era fashions, accessories, etiquette and manners. Visit www.victorianalady.com to learn more.
Schiffer Books is publishing her book, The Fashionable Victorians, in 2012.
She has four children: Megan, Robbie, Aaron and Naomi.
Were you interested in history as a child?
Yes, my ancestors came here late in the 1850s. My grandmother and two great aunts lived into their 80s, early 90s. I spent a lot of time with them growing up. I was fascinated with their old photographs.
I found out my great-great-great grandfather was in Union Army in the Civil War, that sparked my interest. I read anything I could get my hands on about the 19th century. I had a wonderful sixth grade reading teacher, Mrs. Feldman, in the Wilkes-Barre Dana Street School. She really challenged my love of history.
What do you remember of the ’72 Flood?
We lived in South Wilkes-Barre. I remember we were up on 309 at the Acme Super Market getting groceries. It was jammed. Everybody in town was up there.
I remember the siren going off. It was such an awful sound. My mother said that’s when we would know the dike had broken. We had been evacuated and were living with relatives. I remember afterwards the muddy, dirty mess and how awful everything smelled.
Later we moved to the Pittston area
What did you do after college?
When I got out I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I took a job at Design Systems in Wilkes-Barre, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do.
I had this passion for history and the Victorian era and I always wanted to write a book. So here I am today. Better late then never. Sometimes things just evolve
Talk about that evolution.
In 2002 I was raising young children and my friends were also young mothers and it seemed we never had time to get together. I couldn’t bear one more Tupperware or Pampered Chef party.
I was interested in Victorian history and I had inherited a lot of pieces so I thought, I’m going to start a tea society. Because Queen Victoria started the institution of afternoon 4 o’clock tea time and I have a Victorian house.
So I sent out 30 invitations to friends, moms at school and people I hadn’t seen in years. I was shocked when I got 26 letters back. So for two hours every month we got together.
Was the tea idea the genesis for The Victoriana Lady?
It was. It was great. We had these two hours to connect without the kids around. What happened was my daughter Megan’s piano teacher, Linda Schroeder, asked me to help do a surprise birthday party for her mother. Her mother’s sisters were coming in from out of town and they were all well into their 80s.
I told her I’d bake everything homemade and I’d set the table. She asked me would it be too much to for me to wear one of my Victorian outfits.
She said her mother and aunts remember their mother wearing corsets and the big hats and she pulled their pictures out.
I said, oh yeah, any excuse to break out my collection. (Laughs).
I said I’ll bring a few things and do a little program. They loved it.
How did your passion turn into a business?
Somebody there at the birthday party knew somebody at the Times Leader. Mary Therese Biebel came to my house.
I was dressed in a Victorian outfit and we put on a tea.
She did the interview and I talked about the party and what I had been doing and I don’t think the newspaper was on my porch 10 minutes and my phone was ringing off the hook.
People calling asking me to do birthday parties for their grandmothers, their little girls, would I entertain for the red hat society? And that’s how it started.
What was the next step?
I took a year and half to research running a catering business. I catered afternoon tea parties all over Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. I did that for three years.
Pennsylvania was the last state where you could sell food for profit made out of your kitchen. Then they passed regulations where you had to install a commercial kitchen.
I looked into that and it would have been $20,000 to put an addition on my house to install everything they required. I wasn’t in that neighborhood with four children.
I was devastated. I thought that was the end of things. But then I said, I’m not giving this up.
Right around this time John Dziak of the Pittston Historical Society and his wife came to one of my programs for the West Pittston Historical Society.
He approached me after and asked me to play Esther Tinsley as a young girl in a documentary film about the Pittston Hospital and Esther Tinsley, Haven on the Hill.
I was honored. She was the only female hospital administrator in the country. Women didn’t even have the vote yet.
I found I really loved reenacting and I got more calls to do my programs, the Victorian fashions, accessories, the history and the etiquette. I decided that was really my passion. I decided to go strictly in that direction. I was still going to the same venues, but I wasn’t bringing the food. They would have it catered and I was strictly the entertainment.
I have quite a wonderful collection. And I’m happy to be able to get out and show other people.
How did the collection start and where do you find stuff?
It started when I was 15. I went to my first estate sale with a friend’s mother. I bought a pair of lace gloves and a beaded handbag and I was hooked. I tell everybody it’s a sickness, but a good one (Laughs.)
Estate sales, auctions, antique shops, years ago flea markets and thrift stores, but not so much anymore. Since eBay, it’s difficult to just happen upon things.
Now a lot of my items come from donations. During my shows I’ll explain this was donated by so and so in honor of their family. I get a lot of calls from people who offer me things because no one in their family wants them or they don’t have any heirs and they don’t want them thrown away.
I treasure those pieces because not only do I take them out on my traveling museum show, but they will be included in my book, so they will be remembered.
My mother used to roll her eyes and say what are you going to do with all this stuff. Well, now I’m writing a book, so it’s all come to pass.
Describe the book.
It’s a hardcover large format book with lots of pictures, descriptions and text. It covers fashion and accessories of the Victorian Era when Queen Victoria was Queen from 1837-1901. She set the standards for the day for fashion, etiquette, manners. It also encompasses Edwardian Era. Things didn’t change overnight when Queen died. Fashion evolved.
I’m proud that it’s the first hardcover book in the genre.
How as the internet helped the Victoriana Lady?
I’ve been all over the East Coast. I’ve done shows in Georgia, North Carolina, Connecticut, and New York, New Jersey. I love it. It’s a privilege to share the history of our ancestors.
In Georgia I did a program for the Ladies Tea Guild. I spoke at the Grand Wisteria Bed and Breakfast. I did a program in South Carolina at King’s Inn in Summerville about and hour from Charleston where they had a Victorian festival.
In Connecticut I did a Victorian bridal program. They found me through my website or facebook.
How did you come up with the name Victoriana Lady?
When I set up the business I had to have a name and a domain for the website. Victorian Lady was already taken so I went with Victoriana Lady because Victoriana encompasses everything that has to do with the era. I didn’t want to be limited to fashions. I talk about the history, what life was like. I have an Ellis Island program, a program for children.
What’s the Passion Project?
I set up a Victorian Mourning facebook page because one of my programs is about the two-year mourning period required of ladies in the Victorian Age. I also enjoyed cemetery photography.
To me they are like outdoor museums. My family is buried in Hollenback. In college one of my projects was cemetery photos.
Though facebook, a mutual friend introduced me to John. John was working on a Civil War book and he needed a Victorian consultant.
I was a fan of his cemetery photography, but didn’t know who he was. We realized we had a lot in common, became friends and then realized we couldn’t live without each other.
The Passion Project is a historical entertainment company. It encompasses The Victoriana Lady, my book, his books, a gallery show he has coming up and historical events at the Stegmaier Mansion.
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How did you get involved with the Stegmaier Mansion?
I missed catering afternoon teas. There was only one other tea room in the area and they were often booked. I knew the owner Joe Matteo and I approached him about doing teas. That led to other events like the Last Luncheon on the Titanic.
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Hobbies.
Cemetery photography, collecting antiques, reading
Last book read.
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
Favorite moves.
Somewhere in Time, Age of Innocence, Jane Eyre, Little Women, of course the Titanic. The older version, A Night to Remember and the new one.
Favorite saying.
A tea party is a spa for the soul
Dinner guests.
Of course, Queen Victoria is number one. One of my relatives, like my grandfather Samuel J. Martin. The Unsinkable Molly Brown.
Victoriana Lady Schedule
June 18 at 1:00 p.m.: Victorian Fashions Program, Central Penn Doll Collector’s Conference, Mechanicsburg.
June 19 from 2- 4 p.m.: The Last Luncheon on the Titanic. The exact menu that was served to first class, antique artifacts, and hear stories from a Titanic survivor’s daughter. The Stegmaier Mansion B&B, 304 S. Franklin St. Wilkes-Barre, PA (by reservation only call Lisa at 570-655-8392.)
July 16 from 2- 4 p.m.: A Magical Tea with Damian the Magician. The Stegmaier Mansion B&B, 304 S. Franklin St. Wilkes-Barre. (By reservation only call Lisa @570-655-8392)
July 22 at 6:00 p.m.: Titanic Memories Program, Sugar’s Tea Room, 1250 Wyoming Avenue Forty Fort.
August 6: Victorian Fashions Program Gettysburg. (Private Birthday Party)
September 16: 7:00 p.m. Victorian Mourning Fashions and Traditions, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, NY
September 24: Victorian Fashion Program, Victorian Street Fair, Ocean Grove, NJ
September 25: Victorian Fashion Program, Historic West Side, Elmira, NY
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It all started at age 8. Great-Aunt Margaret and Great-Grandma Lucy began sharing family photos, regaling her with stories of her ancestors. She gazed at the pictures, listened intently to the tales– most notably those of her Great-Great-Grandfather Samuel J. Martin. A Quartermaster Sergeant in the Civil War, he survived the bloody Battle of Antietam, returning safely with an honorable discharge. Her rich history of the area also includes anecdotes of her Great-Grandfather Anselm Riley, a carpenter at the Huber Breaker in Ashley, and his father, an original Breaker boy.
