Before we enter, Dennis Horvath, who would be our guide for the weekend's bus tours, chats with Deb awrence, who would be taking us through the mansion. Electric light fixtures are often measured by wattage but this one is measured by weight. Custom made in Germany, it weighs in at one ton. Intricately hand carved wood features, like the balcony railings behind the chandelier and the lion heads in the dining room, are common. The carved wood wall at one end of the music room once covered the pipes of an organ which James Allison sometimes played. The room that everyone is looking at in the fifth picture was the aviary. Mrs Allison kept exotic birds in the marble room with the stained glass skylight. there is lots of marble throughout the house. In fact, most of the gas fired fireplaces are fronted with marble but the one in the library is done in Rookwood tile. Today the building houses the office of Marian's president and is used for banquets and other functions.

The bus headed off to Crownhill Cemetery where we drove by several graves of notable people and stopped at a few. The pictures are of James Allison's small marker, which Dennis had marked with a red flower, Frank Wheeler's rather plain stone, and Carl Fisher's crypt. I even have a "dark side of the moon" like picture of the rear of the crypt.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must mention that Harry Stutz and I are from the same small Ohio town. Harry left Ansonia at a very early age. I stayed there through high school.