LEHMAN TWP. — It began life as a coal baron’s mansion and became part of a college campus, but there’s another side of Hayfield House’s history that most visitors don’t hear about.

An upcoming tour aims to change that.

“Imagine being a servant in the 1930s and shown the ballroom in Hayfield House,” said Megan Mac Gregor, the acting head librarian and student engagement and outreach librarian at Nesbitt Library at Penn State Wilkes-Barre.

“You are not thinking ‘Wow I get to live here,’ but ‘I have to clean this,’” Mac Gregor said.

“Below Stairs at Hayfield: Women Servants” will showcase the lifestyle of domestic workers at the 50-room mansion when it was occupied by the Conyngham family.

The house tour, organized by Arts at Hayfield, will be held on Saturday, March 24.

“We will go through the house from the servants’ perspective,” Mac Gregor said.

Attendees will tour the servants’ quarters, learn what it was like to be a servant in the early 20th century, and get a rare glimpse of Hayfield House’s basement vault, where the Conynghams had separate rooms to store their furs, wine and silver, Mac Gregor said.

Hayfield House was built for John Nesbitt Conyngham and his wife Bertha, who took up residence on Thanksgiving Day 1933, according to a Penn State history of the home.

John Conyngham was a president and director with several large corporations, director and vice president of Miners National Bank in Wilkes-Barre and had an interest in several coal companies. He would not enjoy the palatial surroundings of his new home for long, however, dying in his bedroom on July 12, 1935, at the age of 69. His wife lived on until 1964, however.

Penn State Wilkes-Barre, which opened in the city in 1916, dedicated its new campus at the Hayfield site in 1968.

The house tour idea was inspired by letters from John and Bertha Conyngham, Mac Gregor said.

When staff began sorting through archives for Penn State Wilkes-Barre’s centennial in 2016, they found the home’s blueprints, as well as some letters that referred to servants by only their first names.

“That was common practice at the time,” Mac Gregor said.

The information set Mac Gregor on a hunt for more. She tapped into the census records and tried to piece together information about the servants.

She found the Conynghams’ cook from their Wilkes-Barre home, Mary Bailey, was brought to Hayfield House when the couple moved.

Mac Gregor also learned about how difficult the cook’s job may have been.

One of the letters from John Conyngham reports that “their cook was having quite a bit of trouble with the coal stove” at Hayfield House, Mac Gregor said.

The stove’s drafting mechanism was not working properly, the letter stated. Coal-stove drafting aids in air flow to the fire and allows gases to vent.

“Imagine trying to cook a 12-course meal on a coal stove that does not draft and makes a mess every time you try to use it,” Mac Gregor said. “Then you have to stop cooking and clean up the mess.”

The tour also will include general information about what it was like being employed as a servant in America at that time, Mac Gregor said.

Working as a servant was not considered a reputable job in the 1930s, Mac Gregor noted, and many were first- or second-generation citizens without skills.

“I found an account of a woman telling her mother that she took a job as a servant,” describing someone who was not connected with the Conyngham family. “Her mother cried, probably wondering what she did wrong.”

Mac Gregor
https://www.mydallaspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/web1_mam1201.jpg.optimal.jpgMac Gregor Submitted photos

This 1964 photograph shows what is believed to be a servant in Hayfield House, according to Megan Mac Gregor, acting head librarian and student engagement and outreach librarian at Nesbitt Library at Penn State Wilkes-Barre in Lehman Township.
https://www.mydallaspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/web1_servant-photo-sept-1964.jpg.optimal.jpgThis 1964 photograph shows what is believed to be a servant in Hayfield House, according to Megan Mac Gregor, acting head librarian and student engagement and outreach librarian at Nesbitt Library at Penn State Wilkes-Barre in Lehman Township. Submitted photos

By Eileen Godin

egodin@timesleader.com

IF YOU GO

What: “Below Stairs at Hayfield: Women Servants” tour

When: 1:30 p.m. Saturday, March 24.

Where: Academic commons Building, Penn State Wilkes-Barre, 1269 Old Route 115, Lehman Township

Admission: $10 per person

Details: Reservations are required. Call 570-675-9232 or visit https://goo.gl/7nWRh9 to register.

Reach Eileen Godin at 570-991-6387 or on Twitter @TLNews.