Member profile: Alison Davis

October 2018 – Had Alison Davis not remembered that a certain old farm might be for sale back in 1959, Trail Wood as we know it might not exist. Alison’s husband, then first selectman of Hampton, was called by a couple who wanted to leave Long Island for the quiet life in rural Connecticut. Did he know of a place?

That couple was the Teales—Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Edwin Way Teale and his wife and fellow naturalist, Nellie. Alison recalled that a woman in town said her house was getting to be too much for her. The Teales bought the property, which became the subject of two of Edwin’s books and, eventually, the foundation of a nature sanctuary owned by Connecticut Audubon.

Alison, an author of books on spirituality, keeps the memory of her friends alive by leading writing workshops at Trail Wood.

“People who come to Trail Wood always want to meet the Teales. I’m about the closest thing there is to meeting them because I knew them so well. I help them reach the Teales, to feel their presence, because I can tell them about them. And so I bridge that big gap of years between today and when they were living here in Hampton.

“I don’t really teach writing, I create an atmosphere. My job is to encourage and inspire them to get going on the writing itself.

“The Teales left their signature on Trail Wood, definitely. Besides feeling nature, you feel a friendliness, something quite different at Trail Wood. People love it and feel a warmth about it. Something draws people to it. And I want them to feel this right away and get them to really be there and be feeling really deeply about things.”

How she found the Trail Wood for the Teales:
“Edwin and Nellie and were looking for a place in Hampton because that was the place they loved and they wanted to be here. And when they came to Wendell and me, because they were told about him being first selectman—he was also a professor at the university and another professor knew the Teales and suggested that they come to Wendell. And so we looked for months, all winter.

“And in the springtime, we were just having supper one evening, and I don’t know what happened, but we were talking about the Teales and it popped into my mind that years ago, a couple of years before, Mrs. Marcus had mentioned that she ought to sell her house because it was too big and she was getting old and it was hard to take care of. And I thought, ‘Ohhh, yes. That’s a perfect place for them.’

“I didn’t realize how perfect. It had everything on their list that they wanted. And so, the next morning, we went to look at it. She invited us to come over and—I guess just the Teales went over and looked at it. But when they got it, we all walked the bounds and they took our whole family out to supper and . . . went . . . to celebrate, they were buying it. And that’s when we became quite close to them and became a family. Unofficially. But very close.

“My main job in my life is to encourage a sense of wonder and awareness in people. . . This is what they do when they go to Trailwood. They look around and . . . people come back with their eyes just sparkling. That’s something that everyone needs to have helped along, to have encouraged in them. And if I can help, I will try.”

Interview by Liz Acas