LEBANON — To say Greg Schwarz knew Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park like it was etched in stone would be an understatement.
Schwarz, who worked at the former estate of famed sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens for 25 years, knew its stories.
The longtime Lebanon resident regaled visitors he enthusiastically encountered with stories about trees lining the Cornish property’s sweeping lawns, of seemingly empty corners of museum space and, of course, of looming sculptures
“He was the best face for the National Park System we could have had in this area — friendly, knowledgeable, laid back. He made everybody feel welcome at Saint-Gaudens,” said longtime friend Margaret Drye, a volunteer EMT who provides services to the park.
“He had an eye out for how the park looked, how people would react,” added Drye, a Plainfield resident. “And people felt comfortable there.”
Schwarz, who died on April 8, 2020, at 68 from a ruptured aorta, had a love of history that extended beyond the grounds of Saint-Gaudens, and a volunteer ethic to match.
Since coming to the Upper Valley in the mid-1970s, he led archeological digs in Enfield, went toe-to-toe with developers in Lebanon and built an at-home collection of artifacts that could rival some museums.
Kerstin Burlingame, the lead interpretive ranger at Saint-Gaudens, said Schwarz loved sharing history, whether it was a 25-foot antique roller coaster he once set up in his yard or smaller items. She recalled one time her children were having a Harry Potter-themed party.
“Naturally, he had an antique crystal ball,” Burlingame said during a memorial gathering of park staff. “He had table cloths that had actually been in the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum, and he lent those things freely.”
Schwarz was born on May 15, 1951 in Syracuse, N.Y., to Herman and Hildegard Becker Schwarz.
His family, which was of German descent, fascinated him from a young age and Schwarz would often make inquiries to go into the antics of those he visited as a child in search of history, according to his wife of almost 47 years, Susan Schwarz.
Growing up, Schwarz also worked in his grandfather’s bakery, where he learned to make the pastries and cakes that family, friends and co-coworkers would come to love.
He graduated from Syracuse’s Nottingham High School in 1968 and went on to study history at Hartwick College in upstate New York, where he met Susan in an intro to psychology class.
“We ended up sitting next to each other,” she said, remembering taking copious notes as a freshman.
Schwarz, she recalled, was a sophomore at the time and when class was over, only had a few lines written down in his notebook.
“He was a very laid-back sort of outgoing person who was interested in a wide variety of things,” Susan Schwarz said.
The two hit it off quickly, began dating and married just a few months after Susan Schwarz graduated. After she got a job teaching math at Mascoma Valley Regional High School, the two moved to Enfield Center.
It’s while living there that Schwarz began volunteering at the Enfield Shaker Museum, which was then getting off the ground in its efforts to preserve the village near Mascoma Lake.
Carolyn Smith, the nonprofit’s founding executive director, remembers Schwarz just walking in one day and asking to help.
At the time, he was working at the Dartmouth College Museum, a predecessor to the Hood Museum, and that knowledgeable came in handy, she said.
“We had nothing. We had no money. We had no people,” Smith said. “Greg, from the beginning, really was just a huge help because of his background and experience with museum work. He was hugely helpful in getting things organized here.”
Schwarz’s most ambitious project was an effort to find the Enfield Shakers’ feast stone, said to be somewhere atop Mount Assurance, which is near the lake.
The stone was part of a much larger outdoor worship area used in the spring and fall, Smith said. But in 1855, the Shakers removed the stone and stopped using the site.
Interested in finding it, Schwarz led an archeological expedition on the mountain, which uncovered where the former fence and gates once stood, but not the stone.
“For the rest of his life really he did research and wondered whatever happened to the stone,” Smith said. “We never have found it. It might be up on the hill somewhere.”
Schwarz left Dartmouth College in 1988 and was for a time director of the Woodstock Historical Society. In 1992, he became chief of interpretation at Saint-Gaudens.
It’s there that he inspired young park rangers and visitors with his love of history. Virginia Drye, Margaret’s daughter who grew up attending Sunday concerts in the park, is working toward a degree in history because of Schwarz.
“Greg Schwarz inspired me to get it done,” she said, recalling how he would joke with her about Drye’s knack in finding four-leaf clovers. “My life goal is to become a ranger there because he was one there.”
Schwarz also took storytelling seriously and worked hard to make sure that tales told to guests were grounded in fact, said Henry Duffy, the park’s curator.
“He was always a historian,” Duffy said. “It was something he did, I would say, without thinking.”
By the time Duffy jointed the Saint-Gaudens team more than 20 years ago, Schwarz had co-authored a book on the Shaw Memorial, a 14-year effort to memorialize the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, the first military unit consisting of Black soldiers to be raised in the North during the Civil War.
Schwarz, Duffy said, was instrumental in researching other works and periods of Saint-Gaudens’ life as well.
“He made sure that the work of the park remained scholarly, that it remain strong in that area,” Duffy said. “He wanted to make sure that when the rangers gave information, that they gave it based on scholarship.”
It was while he was working at Saint-Gaudens that the Schwarz family moved to Lebanon. They had two children — Kristina and Andrew — and Schwarz was a devoted father, according to Susan Schwarz.
Schwarz hosted his children’s classes at Saint-Gaudens and took the family on several vacations to visit other historical sights.
“We sometimes joke abut ‘Oh no, not another national park,’ ” Susan Schwarz said with a laugh.
She added Schwarz’s natural storytelling ability was beloved by his children and he would often create stories for them.
Concerned about the development of Lebanon, he joined the city’s Planning Board in 2008 after being recruited by the late City Councilor Nicole Cormen and longtime board member Joan Monroe.
Schwarz had a healthy skepticism toward developers and marketing speak during his 12-year tenure, Monroe said. He also advocated for “dark-sky” policies, worried that lights from new development would mar the city’s neighborhoods in the evening.
“He didn’t hesitate when he felt things had been overlooked and not addressed,” Monroe said. “He was not naive about developers.”
But no matter how contentious meetings sometimes got, Schwarz remained a gentleman, she said.
Schwarz’s work in the community even continued after he sustained a traumatic brain injury in 2010. The injury, which temporarily left him without the ability to speak, resulted in a nearly two-month rehabilitation at Mt. Ascutney Hospital and Health Center.
“That was the thing that was hardest for him. He had to learn to speak all over again,” said Susan Schwarz.
But Schwarz persevered, slowly regaining his voice by singing to an iPod filled with oldies classics. And while his speech and walking may have slowed down, his volunteerism didn’t.
He retired from the National Park Service in 2017, which left him with time to reengage with the Enfield Shaker Museum, rejoining its board more than a year ago. He also served on the Lebanon Heritage Committee and board of trustees for the West Lebanon Congregational Church.
Smith, the Enfield Shaker Museum’s former executive director, said Schwarz was just as engaged as ever, helping to solve problems and think up new ways to manage the museum.
“Greg was extremely reliable. If Greg said he would do something, he was going to do it and he did it when he said he would do it and he did it well,” she said, noting that he attended a board meeting the night before he died.
“We miss having him to help us. We miss his counsel,” she added.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.