The Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Memorial Museum has two yellow brick fireplaces, one in the Rosenmeier Research Room and one in the Musser Library.
If you look carefully at the mantel of the library fireplace, you’ll see words inscribed on it that say, “Good friend around these hearth stones speak no evil word of any creature.”
This inscription is also on the fireplace in Charles Weyerhaeuser’s former Little Falls home, now part of Linden Hill.
Fans of the architect Frank Lloyd Wright will recognize this inscription as the one he has on the fireplace in his Oak Park, Illinois, home, which he built for his family in 1890.
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Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of The Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Memorial Museum.
But what is the origin of the quote?
Which inscription came first? Oak Park or the Weyerhauser Museum?
The same inscription is on a wood panel built around 1900 in Lake Muskoka that my family still owns.
Appreciate any information on it’s origin.
The inscription did not originate at the Weyerhaeuser Museum, John. Our museum was constructed between 1974 and 1975, opening officially in August 1975. Oak Park came first, but I don’t know where Frank Lloyd Wright got the quote or if he created it.
Mary Warner
Executive Director