Page A4 / The Joan De Arc Crusader / Friday, December 25, 2020
Front Page A1 / Editorials A2 / Barbara Bueker Stewart A3 / Crossword A5

The Elmiger bedroom motif on Joan De Arc

  By J. Bueker 

     I shared a room with my brother Charles for the first dozen years of my life. As the elder offspring, sisters Sue and Barbie were accorded the privilege of exclusive bedchamber accommodations on Joan De Arc Avenue, as 3219 was fitted with a complement of four bedrooms in all. Until Sue up and married and left the nest in ‘71, Chuck and I were roomies.
     We got on pretty well for the most part. The standard sibling rivalries and childish pettiness occasionally surfaced of course, but never amounted to too much. I looked up to my older brother and deeply admired his benevolent nature and uncanny skill with all things mechanical. Our years spent sleeping and hanging out in the same room engendered a brotherly bonding experience that has endured.
     How I did love that room. Located on the northwest corner of the house, the boy’s bedroom was comfortably spacious and I can still recall the layout and furnishings as if I’d seen them last week: two single beds separated by a large chest of drawers situated directly beneath the large double window overlooking the Avenue, a tall shelving unit with a bottom sliding door compartment occupying the southwest corner, a small cushioned seat by the door, and a perpetually cluttered and disarranged closet to the south.
     My memories of this space are virtually endless. I spent quite the significant chunk of my formative years here playing, reading, doing homework, daydreaming, listening to music, and on occasion, whiling away a couple hours in solitary confinement after sufficiently annoying my father. Oh yes, and sleeping. The Christmas Eves when Charles and I lay awake all night, talking and playing board games on the floor, excitedly anticipating our impending gifts from Santa, are forever imprinted upon the recollection of my youth.
     The room’s furnishings and décor were therefore destined to become unforgettable details of my childhood existence and probably constituted one of our mother’s many priorities upon our arrival on Joan De Arc in late ’63. Ever the artist, Barbara focused upon the finer details of the room’s interior decoration, to which in hindsight she clearly gave careful consideration. Her notion of an appropriate theme for a boy’s room in the early 1960s was primarily oriented in the indelible masculine imagery of warfare and automobiles, as this thematic pairing turned out to be the primary motifs of the adornment she assembled for our bedroom walls.
     Central to this decorative scheme was the work of one Frederick Elmiger (1890-1975), a notable mid-century American illustrator who produced an extraordinary body of history-themed works for the Donald Art Company in Post Chester, New York. The peak of the artist’s popularity just happens to have coincided precisely with the Bueker’s early years on Joan De Arc -- such being the whims of destiny.
     Elmiger was a genuinely prolific artist who specialized in the gouache technique of illustration, creating innumerable images of soldiers, officers, and historic battle scenes which were translated into mass-produced lithographs. He also designed an excellent series of antique car images and a handful of other domestic studies that have since ascended to the realm of popular mid-century collectibles.
     The artist was particularly fond of Revolutionary War imagery. His vividly rendered soldiers and battle scenes from that particular conflict are among his best-known works, and it was from this military genre that Mother opted to purchase for our bedroom walls. The Elmiger Revolutionary soldier prints were typically sold in a set of four: Continental Army Private, Washington's Bodyguard, Colonel of Artillery, and American Dragoon; and it was this very quartet that came to live with us at 3219.
     Naturally I’ve no idea all these years hence where Mother procured our Elmiger lithographs, although it’s not difficult to imagine her coming across them at the Westown T.G & Y. or perhaps Kresge’s or Woolworth’s at Chris-Town. Of vital significance is that these mass-produced pictures were relatively inexpensive and for this reason failed to rouse the attention of our famously tight-fisted papa. Otherwise, it’s a virtual certainty that Charles and I would have never made the acquaintance of Mr. Frederick Elmiger.
     Barbara also added a few other memorable touches to our walls to complement the Elmiger soldiers and vintage car images. I distinctly recall a pair of antique pistol lithographs, although these were apparently not the work of Elmiger, as I can find no evidence now that he ever treated of this particular subject matter. Mother also acquired an excellent collection of antique map reproductions from the Penn Prints Co. of New York, and added a few to complete the historical flavor of the room. We undoubtedly took it all a bit for granted at the time, but in retrospect our bedroom décor was actually pretty cool.
     Things inevitably became rearranged over the years of course, and new items would appear and disappear from the bedroom walls. As my interest in sports emerged for example, I would display pictures of favorite athletes and teams in various places on the walls and bedroom door. However, the original historical motif that Mother assembled for the space in 1964 remained remarkably intact for the full 13 years of our residence on Joan De Arc.
     Few categories of childhood remembrance match the significance of one’s bedroom when growing up. Indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a more meaningful space in a kid’s life. I still have the privilege on occasion of visiting my old Joan De Arc bedroom in my dreams at night. Every object is always quite vivid and still right there where I left it. I suspect the spirit of Frederick Elmiger haunts the room as well, smiling at those timeless and intrepid soldiers guarding our walls.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________JDA

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