Celeste Hash Bunnell

They asked for a profile, which is supposed to be brief; I’ll try.

I was taught home-making arts early. My eldest sister got hooked on baking in Home Ec classes, and she and I had lots of fun in our mother’s kitchen. I became adept at making pies and everything else. Plus, she taught me to sew. We designed and sewed our own clothes.

I left UNR and went to California for my university years. Then I was fortunate to be a homemaker most of my adult life. It was a happy occupation—one I was good at and enjoyed immensely.

We raised our children without a television in the house—we read books aloud which was way more fun. My children cooked and sewed and learned every good thing I could teach them. “The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.” (Sensible Etiquette 1878) I am very old fashioned.

Although I got my B.A. degree in Historic Parks Management, I have hardly worked for money in that field. However, I make a good volunteer at a few California State Historic Parks. I design and sew costumes for living-history enactments and get away from it all by visiting another century.

Music has always been important to me. I am grateful for the eccentric music teacher of my junior-high-school years, and the lovable baroque music teacher of my university years, who directed many happy hours of playing and singing great music. Now, I play bluegrass music on stand-up bass—Bach to bluegrass.

I am a watercolour artist and an artist of home life. When we retired to the country (in the forest, eight miles south of Placerville), my husband built a house that I designed. I garden flowers. And most days last summer, I cut more than a dozen roses—bouquets on every free surface. We have no dogs, so deer browse through our property. Turkeys and all manner of wildlife pass by my dooryard.

My raison d’être is to do my “utmost to encourage the Beautiful, for the Useful encourages itself.” (Goethe)