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

6 • LOCAL NEWS
The Mountain Times • Nov. 13-19, 2019
Local Button Club celebrates 40 years
By Ed Larson
The only Vermont button club is
celebrating a 40th anniversary this year,
coinciding with National Button Day on
Nov. 16.
The Verd Mont Button Club in Rutland
is comprised of approximately 25 members
who meet monthly for eight months
of the year. During the four coldest months
they peruse, clean, mount and learn about
buttons at home while exchanging emails,
texts and phone calls. Many members
have clothing or apparel buttons dating
back hundreds of years.
The name is separated into the original
Verd (meaning green) and Mont (meaning
mountain). The original membership felt
this provided a special sense of identity for
the club.
A display of colonial copper, silver and
military buttons is being shown in a glass
display case at the Vermont State Welcome
Center in Fair Haven, through the month of
November. Some of the colonial coppers
and silvers came from a homestead built
in 1795 in Rutland and still occupied to this
day by descendants of the original builders.
The military display is quite appropriate
with Veterans Day being observed during
the month of November.
In April, Gov. Phil Scott signed a proclamation
dedicating Verd Mont Button Club
Day, in celebration of the club’s efforts in
regional competitions and educational
programs as well as 40 years of continuous
existence. The governor’s proclamation is
also on display at the Fair Haven Vermont
Welcome Center. Club members have won
awards, including one People’s Choice
Award at the New England Regional Button
Association (NERBA) Show. Two members
serve on the NERBA board of directors.
Other members have been directly
involved in presentations to the National
Button Society annual show. N.B.S. grants
have assisted the Verd Mont club with biennial
open house button shows in Vermont.
Heard the saying “cute as a button?”
Cute as a button isn’t the original phrase.
The word cute was derived from the 1731
Woodstock Ave.
RT 4 East, Rutland
sensibleshoe.com
Open 7 days
(802) 773- 7515
Vermont’s only button club is in Rutland and celebrating 40 years this year.
English meaning of the word, “acute,”
bright or clever. One of the most approved
explanations of the saying is ‘being acute
as a button” or referring to the shine of
polished brass buttons. And there are hundreds
of millions of brass buttons out there.
Those little tins, baskets, cigar boxes
and containers of buttons that have been
passed down through generations, sometimes
contain treasures that not only depict
family history but are worth some serious
money to collectors.
Colonial copper buttons sell for up to
$750 each and more, and Civil War military
buttons run into the thousands of dollars.
George Washington inaugural clothing
buttons can fetch over $10,000 in auction
or private sales. Most are valued a lot less
but have significant value to the individual
collector. Like artwork varies in pricing,
buttons also run the full spectrum of costs.
The variables are rarity, artwork, historical
SALE
20%
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Vermont Socks
This Saturday (16th) & Sunday (17th) only.
By Ed Larson
significance and providence. Many of the
detailed buttons are considered works of
art today and displayed as museum pieces,
such as in the Keep Homestead Museum in
Monson, Massachusetts.
“My grandmother put buttons on paper
plates and hung them up as pictures,” said
Betty Cross of South Royalton. Betty kept
those plates for many years, not knowing
what to do with them. Eventually she met
with a collector from New Hampshire who
invited her to a meeting and a 30-yearhobby
of collecting commenced. Cross has
been active in the New England Regional
Button Association, which meets once a
year for competition amongst collectors,
and Betty is considered one of the Verd
Mont Button Clubs senior experts on button
collecting.
Many members possess thousands
of buttons that cover the gamut of garment
buttons. Many people are surprised
to learn that buttons on garments were
predominantly worn by men rather than
women in original usage. Today zippers
and Velcro may become the collectables a
century from now.
Lisa Wernhoff, of East Montpelier, got
her start after joining 4-H at the age of 8.
Semi-retired now, the former archivist for
Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream stated she started
sewing as it was hard to find age appropriate
clothing for someone who is tall. Her
and her sister made button bracelets while
spending one night at her grandmother’s
house. “My favorites were black glass
because they were so shiny and made a
clicking noise when I wore them,” she
states. “Grandma would give us a piece of
stretchy elastic cord and a tin of button’s;
we were allowed to pick any we wanted and
string them on the elastic.”
In college, Wernhoff majored in home
economics with a concentration in clothing,
textiles and design. She now has some
twenty drawers full of buttons from four
generations of family members, adding
that purchases have also added to the lot as
there were many buttons “too pretty to pass
up.” She then joined the Verd Mont Club
five years ago when the “button collecting
bug hit.” As a result, she has joined four
button associations, and reads countless
books and articles on buttons.
All the club members, like Wernhoff, are
automatically members of the Northeast
Regional Button Association (NERBA).
Most belong to the National Button Society,
and a few belong to the British Button
Society.
Carol and Robert Curtis of Proctor are
husband and wife members. Robert said
that his wife received a collection of buttons
from her great aunt. After becoming
interested in that collection the Curtises
began purchasing from garage sales and
other places. Curtis says the current club
president Amy Larson suggested they
attend a meeting, and were hooked on the
history and vast amount of information
available. Buttons collectors become chronologists
of history. The Curtises state that
club members are just fun to be around as
they share information.
Sharing information has been a theme
for the Verd Mont Button Club. Displays at
Vermont welcome centers, open houses in
Rutland, Middlebury and Shelburne, along
with lectures and seminars on button
history have been instrumental activity for
the club. Another statewide open house is
planned for the Montpelier area in 2021.
The late Warren Tice of Essex Juntionwas
a founding member of the Verd Mont
Button Club and wrote the definitive books
on military button collecting from 1776 to
1865 titled Uniform Buttons of the United
States is sought after internationally by collectors.
Tice’s “Dating Buttons” a limitededition
printing exhibits prices up to $1,500
per copy.
Susan Peden of Shoreham worked as
the education coordinator at the Henry
Sheldon Museum in Middlebury. She
was attracted to the hobby by a friend, the
late Barbara Wells, whom Susan observed
cleaning trays of buttons from the collection
of Ida B. Horton. One of Peden’s
hobbies is Civil War reenacting and sewing
reproduction 19 th Century clothing.
“Barbara did not miss my interest in the
subject of her task and began inviting me
to the Verd Mont Button Club meetings,”
Peden said.
The first meeting was enough to
convince Peden, who is always on the
prowl for more buttons. Peden has done
extensive research on Colt buttons. Yes, the
gun manufacturer turned out hundreds of
thousands of buttons. “Buttons along can
make the woman or man!” Peden adds.
Peden is now the vice president of the
club.
Another Shoreham resident, Lyn
Blagden, has a love for antique clothing
and fabrics. She calls it an “obsession” that
began when she was growing up in New
Jersey. There she found trunks full of very
old clothing, wigs and purses in the attic.
Those became costumes in school plays.
Blagden took notice of the embroidery and
Buttons > 37