“Mail Pouch Barnstormers Gather in Mansfield for a Perfect Painting Party“
by Bill Vint – Fall 2021 edition of the ‘Mail Pouch Barnstormers’ newsletter
It wasn’t a perfect solution, but the Mail Pouch Barnstormers found a way to keep one of its best traditions alive in the COVID world of 2021 by throwing a painting party.
With COVID-19 refusing to go away, an opportunity to work around the social distancing limitations of the COVID world revealed itself earlier in the year when Mary Lou Taylor of Mansfield, Ohio, sent the Barnstormers a note asking if her membership dues were overdue or not. An additional note explained she wanted to get the fading Mail Pouch sign on her family’s barn restored, a great part because that’s what her late husband, Dick Taylor, would have wanted. Dick had died in March.
As we noted in a previous newsletter, the solution to our annual meeting dilemma kind of emerged out of a strange set of circumstances, helped along with some dedicated Barnstormers who provided the “boots on the ground” to tend to the necessary details.
The idea was to hold an open-air gathering to watch a professional restore an original Mail Pouch sign painted by Harley Warrick. The Barnstormers approved a grant to help cover the costs of the sign restoration. Ken Cunningham, who lives in the area, did a lot of the work, including prepping the barn’s surface so noted barn painter Claude Ruston (Rusty) Baker could apply the finishing touches to the sign itself.
Working with Mary Lou, we invited all interested Barnstormers to join the party, and an estimated 40 enthusiasts showed up along with several of the Taylor family’s friends from an antique auto club, and other interested parties. People gathered safely outdoors, in the open air. It was free. There was no potluck meal, and no fundraising auction, but we eliminated as much potential COVID exposure as possible. And we got an historic Mail Pouch sign restored to its original beauty.
“The worst part of the day was not having enough time to talk to all of the Mail Pouch people,” Mary Lou said. “We had a lot of people, I thought. The best thing was this: my daughter (Jackie Baker) and I volunteer for a local hospice. We work at the store in town and a lot of people make donations, mostly nice donations. One of the ladies who volunteers there was moving to a smaller home and she said she had a print of ‘The Red Barn’ that Harley had painted. My daughter put it in the store with a price of $50, but no one looked at it. So she brought it to the shindig to see if anyone had an interest. A friend of ours put an offer of $100 on it. Another friend put $125 on it. And another young guy who apparently goes to the Barnstormer picnics told Jackie he wasn’t leaving without the picture, so he bought it and every penny went to the hospice.” The buyer of the hard-to-find limited edition Warrick print was Keith Tracy of Barnsville, Ohio, who made a $200 donation to the hospice.
An unexpected addition to the sign painting project, Mary Lou added, was repairing a couple of broken slate tiles on the roof. She “borrowed” the lift and got some help from an Amish carpenter who lived nearby to fix the roof.
“Everything worked out, and the weather was perfect,” Mary Lou added. “I thought it all went very well. Some people stayed to watch, others drove by. Everyone worked harder than I did, and it looks so nice. It’s wonderful. I needed to get it done, but I don’t know who I could have found to do it.”
“I really appreciate what the Barnstormers did. Dick would be happy.”
For more on this barn, please see MPB 35-70-02.
