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After a dozen years, farm life festival takes final bow
Parlett family looks for new home for event's vast collection
Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by REID SILVERMAN
Visiting friends in Golden Beach on Saturday, Sophia Gallagher, 4, of Indian Head heads off on the barrel ride at the Southern Maryland Farm-Life Festival.
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Many families brought their children and grandchildren to the Southern Maryland Farm-Life Festival in Charlotte Hall last weekend to see the vast collection of tractors, butter churns, sleighs, buggies, cultivators, country store artifacts and other primitive and antique tools and utensils used by generations of farmers in Southern Maryland.
This was the 12th year for the event that benefits Christmas in April St. Mary's County, which works to rehabilitate the houses of low-income homeowners, especially the elderly and the disabled.
This was also the last year of the festival, which was begun in 1997 by the late John Knight Parlett Sr. and his wife, Catherine, who is affectionately known as Miss Kitty. Parlett and his wife raised seven children, four boys and three girls, on the 130-plus acre farm that they bought in 1958.
A former member of the Maryland House of Delegates and a former St. Mary's County commissioner, Parlett began collecting items years ago, recognizing early on that a way of life in St. Mary's County was gradually disappearing. The collection grew to include eight barns with different themes, a recreated early hardware store and more than 50 antique John Deere tractors, plus thousands of small items, like hand tools and kitchen utensils.
"My mom and dad used to have tour buses showing up at the farm, wanting to look around," said Joe Parlett, who runs Keepers antique shop in New Market. "Schools would bring their children and there would even be people from Russia who would ask to come by to see the farm. Finally, they decided to start the Farm-Life Festival and hold, basically, an open house once a year so people could come and see the collections."
When John Parlett Sr. died in 2005, Catherine kept the Farm-Life Festival going, but maintaining and caring for the vast collection has become overwhelming for her. The family decided that this year would be the last for the festival.
"It was a lot of fun and a lot of work," Joe Parlett said. "It really got to be too much for my mom. It is hard to give it up, because it meant so much to Dad. He loved St. Mary's County and saw this as a way of giving back to the community."
The entire Parlett family was involved in the festival, from granddaughter Alexandra DeCesaris' singing of the national anthem to the announcements of ongoing events by son John Parlett Jr. A number of local officials were present, including Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-St. Mary's.)
One of the many visitors attending the festival was retired schoolteacher Ethel Halas and her husband, Stephen, from North Canton, Ohio.
Halas said she was amazed at the diversity and depth of the collection.
"I haven't seen items like these in a long time," Halas said. "What a wonderful opportunity for parents to bring their children and see these tools that their grandparents and great grandparents would have used. So much of early American life was done by hand and was such hard work. I am thrilled that we got to come here and see this."
The future of the Parlett collection is still up in the air, with family members hoping that a private or public entity will step in to save it for future generations. They are seeking help from local, state and federal agencies to see it the collection can be preserved for future generations.
"We hope that it will not come down to having an auction," said Joe Parlett. "We would really like to be able to keep the collection together. It is a wonderful snapshot of American life."
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