The Doolittle farm on Marion Road in West Cheshire, CT was a regular weekend day gathering place for the family during the period of 1927- 1951. Walter and May (Mary) Doolittle were the parents of Viola, wife of DeWayne Loomis France, and grandparents of Walter France.

Jesse France, father of DeWayne, painted many renditions of this farm, most often with the home at the side of the road with a large pine tree in its front yard.

This one-of-a-kind oil painting was done on the back side of the glass door on the front of a wooden clock case which contains an electric Waterbury clock. See the photograph of the clock below. The other two images show the glass backside where the oil paint was applied and the front side where the resulting painting is viewed, as Image 2220. By its appearance, the clock case probably originally contained a key wound clock with a pendulum which was replaced by the electric Waterbury clock without a pendulum. Evidence of this initial mechanism is a four indice pendulum amplitude scale in the back of the interior of the case with the clock maker name F. Kroeber, New York.  Consequently, with no clock mechanism to view through the glass, the painting was made as a unique decoration.

As an historical aside, the Waterbury Clock Co. became the Ingersoll-Waterbury Co. which added electric clocks to its line in 1932. The company subsequently became United States Time Corp. in 1944, and Timex Corp in 1969. (Reference: www.antiqueclockshop.com.)

W.DeWayne France, Jr.
March 31, 2008