Clyde Watson Inc

Description

I was born on July 25th, 1947, and my parents gave me a boy ’s name, Clyde. They thought it was pretty, and in the past, it had been the middle name of a distant female relative. Some of our ancestors came from the Firth of Clyde in Scotland as well. Having this name has brought me many hilarious adventures. For example, once when I signed the receipt on my mother ’s account at the hardware store with my husband standing next to me, the clerk looked puzzled and said, “Your name is Clyde? ” I nodded. Then he turned to my husband and said, “And I suppose you must be Alice? ” I grew up in a two-hundred-year-old house, on a small farm in Vermont, with seven brothers and sisters and a host of animals. Our household was a very lively and noisy place. There were always about 99 things going on at once. In one corner there might be a child playing with a basket of kittens while another fed a baby goat from a bottle. A pet hen, Hepzibah, strolled in and out of the house as she pleased, occasionally laying an egg on the kitchen floor. There were always people in the kitchen making butter, baking bread or cookies, preparing or cleaning up after a meal. From the shop you might hear hammering and sawing, and there were usually two or three people busy sewing, reading, or drawing. Floating above the din created by all of this activity piano, violin, cello, or flute music could often be heard, for we were all expected to practice our instruments daily. With both parents involved in creating books, writing and illustrating were a natural part of everyday life. What fun my brothers and sisters and I had writing stories and poems for each other, often making and illustrating our own books. At Christmas time we carved and printed our own greeting cards. We also wrote letters to each other when we were apart, and kept journals in which we wrote about exciting things that happened, as well as about our dreams and our troubles. My mother, Nancy Dingman Watson, was the author of numerous children's books, most of them illustrated by my father. She encouraged all creative endeavors through her attentive encouragement. My very first published book “Carol To A Child ” was a collaboration with both of my parents: I set a Christmas poem of my mother's to music, and my father illustrated it. The year it was published, all 5 of my sisters and I sang in the church choir at Christmas time. For a surprise, we performed the music from this book, all carrying candles. Right in the middle of it, one sister, still quite young, nearly set her hair on fire! I cherish the image of my mother sitting on the big granite doorstep in Putney, cradling a nursing baby with one hand, scribbling out her next book with the other. When I was grown, our mutual love of words was one of our greatest enjoyments, from doing the Sunday crossword together, to sharing our latest work. My father, Aldren Auld Watson, is a well-known author and illustrator, and in those years, he worked on the third floor of our house. His studio was a wonderful place to spend time.

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