What is your favorite object in the mansion?
"Very easy, I always said if there was a fire going on in the mansion, I would grab one object- the Imari Porcelain bowl in the dining room. It has a chrysanthemum painted in the center. I think it’s the most beautiful piece of porcelain I've ever seen."
The Vanderbilt Mansion's Imari porcelain bowl (NPS Photo)
What is your favorite story about the Vanderbilts or Gilded Age?
"I think the parties, but really anything to do with the Gilded Age. With this couple (Frederick and Louise), they were quite stayed, but the rest of the family was really over the top with the parties they gave for the whole celebratory spirit of the Gilded Age. I especially love reading about the outrageous outfits. There were enormous sums of money spent on parties and it was a fun time until the Depression era."
Alice Vanderbilt (Frederick's sister-in-law) as an electric light, 1883. This gown was designed by the House of Worth (New York Historical Society)
What changes have you seen in the years you've worked here?
"Staffing- the number of staff we used to have…but again, it's a difference in the amount of people that went through the park. It was not unusual back in the ‘80s during the fall season to have thousands of people in a day go through the mansion. I mean, it was just one crowd after the other, so you might do six tours in a day that were 45 minutes apart, 15-minute break in between. It was just a constant flow of people through. Of course, you had a huge staff to accommodate that. The one thing that has made the biggest change here has been a loss of viewshed from the mansion. That was always very important to people. Now they get it from the overlook, but it's still not the same."
How has working at Vanderbilt Mansion NHS impacted you?
"It's been virtually my life. Before I came here, I was a freelance writer, and I wrote comedy material for various companies. I think the highlight of that life was when Johnny Carson bought one of my jokes and told it on his show, so we all got to watch that. I was a Journalism major out of Syracuse University, so when I came over here, I came over as a volunteer after my best friend in Woodstock passed away very suddenly and I figured I needed to get out of town, and I must pursue some interest. My whole interest in the Gilded Age were the writings of Edith Wharton. As a teenage girl she was my favorite author, so I always had an interest in the Gilded Age Era. I found the Vanderbilt Mansion advertising in the Woodstock paper they needed volunteers, and that's what happened. I came here as a volunteer never expecting to get a job but, in those days, they had an immediate need for permanent people, and you were hired immediately, so I just took it and ran with it with 39 years."
Ranger Marge (NPS Photo)Did you know a lot about the Vanderbilt family or Gilded Age before working here?
"From Edith Wharton novels I knew a lot about the Gilded Age, and I had been to Newport, so I'd seen the different Vanderbilt Mansions. I did find photos of my daughter and I here at the Vanderbilt mansion, even a movie in 1961 when we lived in Poughkeepsie. I can always remember from the ‘60s living in Poughkeepsie, nobody had air conditioning and we would drive up here after my husband got home from work at IBM. You would bring a picnic and up on the portico of the mansion they had green Adirondack chairs and there'd be a hundred people up here trying to escape the heat in Poughkeepsie and everyone would have a picnic kind of thing. It was a place that you came to cool off, believe it or not, but it was very much used by local people just to come on the grounds."
In your opinion, why is the Vanderbilt Mansion a special place?
"I think it’s very special because it's a local attraction, the locals love this place. The same families and especially the dog walkers in town always come here, but people really have adopted the Vanderbilt mansion in thelocal community."
Do you have any hopes for the future of the park?
"First, my number one concern is putting the viewshed back again. I don't like to hear people when they're walking over the mansion ask me where the river is. You used to be able to walk down the sidewalk and see it the whole time. Enjoying that view, and seeing the mountains, that whole part of it I'd like to see that back. Also, the gardens are spectacular in all my time here. I've never seen the gardens look as good as they do now, so the volunteers and all their hard work, that’s been the biggest improvement of all."
The view from the Vanderbilt overlook (NPS Photo) 
The Vanderbilt formal gardens in full bloom (NPS Photo)What will you miss here the most after working here day in and day out?
"The people. That's the number one thing. I think every ranger feels that and we certainly got a lesson with that when the mansion was closed due to the pandemic. I think with every Ranger, you feed off their energy when they're around you. What other jobs can you get that when you finish the job? Somebody comes up to you and says you did a great job, or they give you a round of applause? Getting daily feedback about what you've accomplished. Very few jobs give you that."
What was the most touching moment you’ve had here?
"It was off season, and I went to give a tour and it was only a middle-aged woman and her elderly mother. They were the only two on the tour and the mother was in the wheelchair and I brought them up to the second floor on the elevator and we were talking quite a bit, but I knew there was something emotional going on between the mother and the daughter. The daughter wheeled her mother into Louise's bedroom. For a moment, they both stood in the doorway, and I stepped away. Then, the daughter took her mother's hand and held it. And the mother leaned her head on her. The two of them just stood there for a few minutes admiring that beautiful room. You could feel that emotional attachment between them. I will never forget that scene of the two of them just standing there."
Mrs. Vanderbilt's Bedroom (NPS Photo)What is an interesting memory you’ve had here?
"Back in the day when we used to have 50, 60 people on tours, once you've brought people into the mansion you shut that big front door, it's almost soundproof so you can't hear much of anything. This must have been back in the late 80s- I brought the group in, shut the door, and I walked back to the door to make sure it was shut, and I heard timid tapping on the door. For a second, I thought, is that somebody at the door or not? But I opened the door and there was this very tiny elderly lady there and she looked at me and she said, “excuse me” and I said yes, she said, “did you know there's a bear on your front lawn?” And I look out and there's a bear on the front lawn. I grabbed that old lady by her collar and shut the door and I thought how amazingly composed she was."
What is your favorite thing that you know about Frederick and Louise?
"I always liked the way they interacted with the dogs. I love dogs so much, and Louise always seemed to have a little dog, and in those moments when you see them with the animals, they're very human. They're smiling, they're interacting. I think their relationship was beautiful. The combination of his personality with her personality, two very different personalities, but they complimented each other."
The Vanderbilts and their dogs (NPS Photo)Thank you for everything Marge, and congratulations on your retirement!