BRATTLEBORO — Part-time Dummerston resident Jessica Baylis Bousfield, who lived between 1891 and 1996, was a devotee of the theater. And an assiduous collector.
The five volumes of her scrapbooks and diaries, containing rare playbills and reviews of plays she attended between 1912 and 1933, are on display this month at Brooks Memorial Library, 224 Main St.
Bousfield and her husband, Harold, bought approximately 100 acres of land in Dummerston in 1939 and lived there part-time until Harold's death in 1970.
They also resided in Arizona, where, at Chochise College, a scholarship in Jessica's name is awarded annually to a deserving student in the visual arts.
Brooks Memorial Library says it regrets that this collection can not stay permanently, owing to its collection policies, and that its fine arts committee is at work identifying a research institution well suited to provide the conservation that these graceful objects require.