The Mountain Times - Volume 48, Number 46: November 13-19, 2019

The Mountain Times • Nov. 13-19, 2019 SERVICE DIRECTORY • 37
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Buttons: Club collects buttons for 40 years
“Looking for them is so much fun. The
whole business if fun!”
from page 6
pearl or glass buttons, some of
which were on baby shoes and
boots.
After moving to Vermont, she
began going to rummage sales, used
clothing stores and collecting buttons
due to an interest in antiques.
She heard about the Verd Mont Button
Club from a neighbor and began
learning about the many materials
and uses of buttons through the
ages.
Inheritance seems to be a trait
many of the club members share.
Club President Amy Larson, of
Rutland, brought her grandmother’s
collection of thousands upon thousands
of buttons from Michigan
eleven years ago. “I asked myself,
‘what am I going to do with all these
buttons?’” Admitting she had very
limited knowledge and was “totally
unenthused” about button collecting
while still being content to hold
on to something that her grandmother
cherished.
That unenthused attitude
changed when a whole new world
opened to her. Thus, being educated
in history, culture, manmade
and synthetic materials that she
“probably never would have learned
in school.” She also
belongs to four button
associations and reads
countless books and
articles on buttons in
her extensive library.
The passion for button
collecting has reached
the same plateau as her passion for
gardening. She calls it, “A hobby to
immerse myself in during the long
Vermont winters.”
Another one of those flea markets,
garage sale, auction junkies,
Larson makes it clear she travels
near and far to find pieces to add to
her collection. Amy has no hesitation
walking into an antique store
or flea market, such as the annual
Chelsea, Vermont Flea Market, and
asking “Have any buttons?”
Her husband Ed, specializes in
American military buttons, dating
back to the Revolutionary War,
along with transportation buttons,
scouting, specialized
group
buttons,
and unusual heritage
style buttons.
One of his favorites
is a Goodyear button
(yes Goodyear Rubber)
that was specifically
designed
for Civil War
sharpshooters,
known as Berdan’s
Sharpshooters.
These buttons
were dark rubber
with the Army Military
Eagle, and would
not shine in a bright sun
or rustle in the bushes, thus
giving away a sharpshooter’s
position. There were only eight or so
regiments in the Civil War. One such
Regiment from Vermont was commanded
by Gilbert Hart, of Wallingford.
The library there is named
after Hart. The sharpshooters were
instrumental in turning back the
Confederate attack at Cemetery
Ridge at the Battle of Gettysburg.
One colonial button came from a
port in Maine, and another is from a
British bagpiper in the Revolutionary
War. An extensive collection of
Vermont state seal buttons is on display
at the Fair Haven Vermont State
Welcome Center through Nov. 30.
Ed also developed a method of
cleaning metal buttons that has
been successful in restoring Gay
Nineties metal buttons that have
glass jewels embedded in them.
Out in Bridport, one club member
considers herself more of a
button enthusiast than a collector.
Barbara Kivlin inherited some of her
grandmother’s buttons and then
picked up a few jars full at auctions
over the years. “It was enjoyable
to poke through them to appreciate
the craftsmanship and detail,
especially on the older buttons”
she says. She was hooked after attending
a presentation on horn
buttons by the Verd Mont
Club. After going home
from that program, she
began a winter long
effort at sorting nonsewing
buttons into
categories, such as
horn, shell, ceramic
and plastic.
Barbara adds, “I
may not be a true
collector, but I do
have my eye out for
a ‘find’ when I visit antique
stores.”
Another club member
from Rutland, Sheri Ross, says
she made her first quilt
when she was 19 years old out of
scraps of dresses made for her
by her mother. Her mom made
Sheri’s dresses all through her
school years. The dahlia pattern
was a favorite and Sheri says she
added a button into the middle of
each flower pattern. “Oh, if I had
known at 19 what I know now about
buttons, I could have had some
fabulous ones.”
Martha Stewart did a piece on
how to properly display collectable
clothing buttons and
there are hundreds of
online videos of button
collectors, collections,
metal detection clubs
finding buried buttons
as well as how to clean
buttons and preserve
them. Verd Mont Button Club
members are continually viewing
these and more online resources as
the internet age has made it easier
to identify and classify unusual or
previously hard to identify pieces.
The club maintains a very active
profile on Facebook and invites
those on social media to go to
Verd Mont Button Club, where
events, articles, meeting schedules,
comments from other collectors
around the country as well as videos
and pictures of collections can
be seen. Club contact information
is also available on the site. The
club meets once a month for eight
months out of the year at different
locations throughout Vermont. For
the past several years the annual
meeting as well as the club Christmas
Holiday Party has been held
at the Waybury Inn in East Middlebury.
Joan Janzen, of Essex Junction,
went to a museum in Carson City,
Nevada, as a child and saw a button
collection. She started keeping
buttons she found interesting and
started to sew buttons on quilt
corners. Janzen is a historian and
said she finds the history of buttons
most fascinating.
“Looking for them is so much
fun,” she said. “The whole business
if fun!”
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