THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504150083
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FRANKLIN LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
Easter, to Edwin M. Barton, means chopping down a sycamore tree, sticking it in a hole in his front yard, then wiring thousands of hand-painted eggs on the barren branches.
Forty years ago, his mother, Alease Barton, first put up such a tree in her yard in Luray, covering it with hand-blown eggs in varied hues. For a quarter-century, the spectacle delighted adoring children whose parents snapped pictures each year for family albums.
``Mother got the biggest charge out of that,'' Barton said. ``She liked children and liked to see their reactions. She'd watch them grow.''
Then, 15 years ago, his mother, ill with cancer that would claim her life, was too weak to put up a tree. Barton brought the tradition to Franklin, where he teaches music and directs two school bands.
``I do this in her memory.''
It's also in memory of his father, Max, who sold TVs at F.M. Barton & Sons. She helped him at his store and he helped her with her tree.
And partly, the younger Barton does it for the children who come each year to his yard at the end of Verna Street, staring in wide-eyed wonder and having pictures taken year after year for family albums.
``I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't love children,'' he said.
It takes Barton and his wife, Linda, all day to decorate the tree, securing the eggs so they won't hit each other and break. Each year the wind claims several.
Barton, 58, uses some of his mother's original eggs - many repaired and repainted, cracks covered with rick-rack.
A tiny woman of German descent, she learned of the old German tradition from a customer. She insisted on real eggs, blowing them out and painting them herself.
``The egg was very much a religious symbol for her, a sign of life and rebirth,'' Ed Barton said. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MICHAEL KESTNER
Ed Barton of Franklin puts more than 1,500 hand-blown eggs on the
sycamore tree, a tradition begun 40 years ago by his mother.
by CNB