Updike museum director receives Distinguished Service Award

Posted on October 26, 2025 by John Updike Society

Maria Lester, director of The John Updike Childhood Home, was honored for “extraordinary work as Education Director and Director” at the only museum dedicated to the two-time Pulitzer Prize winning writer and famous Berks County resident.

Lester, who co-directed the society’s 2014 conference in Reading, Pa., received the award at the Society Cafe during an Updike Society-sponsored reception for The Roth-Updike Conference in Greenwich Village, NYC, on Sunday, October 19, 2025.

In presenting the award, Updike Society president James Plath praised Lester for her initiatives in reaching out to educators, students, book clubs and other community organizations. Plath said he had spent a decade taking the lead in restoring the home to look as it did when young Updike lived there from 1932-45 and worked with Dave Silcox and others to find treasures to display in the museum. “It was my baby, but now it’s yours,” Plath said.

Plath praised Lester’s vision and added, with a smile, that the board actually had voted to honor her for her 10-plus years of service even before they learned that she had applied for and received a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Lester has been involved in some capacity with the house ever since it was purchased by nonprofit John Updike Society in 2012 with the goal of establishing it as something Shillington can be proud of, just as Updike was proud of Shillington.

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Updike Childhood Home receives NEH grant

Posted on August 6, 2025 by John Updike Society

Maria Lester, director of The John Updike Childhood Home that is owned and operated by the 501c3 John Updike Society, received word recently that the museum at 117 Philadelphia Ave. in Shillington, Pa. was awarded a $25,000 Chairman’s Grant from the head of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In her grant proposal, Lester outlined programs beyond annual operating expenses (which grants do not cover) that will be funded by the grant. “Though rich in artifacts and objects, the museum currently lacks technological tools to fully engage modern audiences. Our signage is outdated and does not reflect the new materials we amassed over the last decade.  In addition, we face storage challenges supporting a growing student-led Victory Garden initiative. As we expand programming to include a writing camp and continued speaker series, we also recognize the need for better collection management, security upgrades, and volunteer support. This grant will help us modernize, grow, and preserve the museum for future generations.”

This is, of course, wonderful news for The John Updike Childhood Home, which the society hopes will continue to be an important part of the community that helped to shape one of America’s best writers of the 20th century—a museum The Wall Street Journal called “a worthy site of literary pilgrimage.”

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Updike’s Buchanan painting now on display

Posted on July 12, 2025 by John Updike Society

Even if you visit The John Updike Childhood Home & Museum frequently, there are still surprises at the house on 117 Philadelphia Ave. in Shillington, Pa.—open most Saturdays from 12-2pm.

Now on display in the second-floor hallway, opposite “The Brown Chest” from Updike’s childhood, is a painting of James Buchanan that John Updike had purchased, thinking it would make a good dust-jacket cover for the only play he wrote, Buchanan Dying—a play that was meant to be read.

Updike’s love of all things Pennsylvania extended to the historical. Buchanan was the only U.S. President to come from Pennsylvania. Buchanan served before Lincoln and until recent years has been considered the worst U.S. President because he backed the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision, went along with southerners who schemed to admit Kansas as a slave state, and allowed the Confederate insurrection to foment prior to the Civil War.

Though Updike’s publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, honored his position as their biggest author by publishing Buchanan Dying, the book did not sell. As Kirkus Reviews summarized, “John Updike has made a stalwart attempt to rescue James Buchanan from historical oblivion — and failed. His play about the last hours of the fifteenth President of the United States offers, alas, a hero who is not so much dying as dramatically dormant.” 

Meanwhile, Knopf did not share Updike’s excitement for the painting he purchased and decided to go with a simple portrait instead. Not much more is known about Updike’s Buchanan painting, which was donated in 2021 by Updike’s children: Elizabeth, David, Michael, and Miranda.

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Updike’s dogwood doggedly persists

Posted on June 28, 2025 by John Updike Society

The dogwood tree (right) that Updike’s parents planted on his first birthday is still alive and well, thanks to excellent care from Pete Giangiulo, who is trying to coax an “offspring” from the tree, via air layering. Planted in April 1933, that makes our dogwood 92 years old. If you google how long dogwoods typically live, you get an age range of 20-80 years. Maybe this one is as magical as Updike thought! Updike famously wrote about the tree in “The Dogwood Tree: A Boyhood”:

“When I was born, my parents and my mother’s parents planted a dogwood tree in the side yard of the large white house in which we lived throughout my boyhood. This tree . . . was, in a sense, me.” According to Updike’s Shillington contact, Dave Silcox, John’s mother later corrected him, telling him it was planted on the one-year anniversary of his birth.

In “The Dogwood Tree,” Updike continued with a line that has more resonance today than when he wrote it:  “My dogwood tree still stands in the side yard, taller than ever . . . .”

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Updike house now sports a 1932 hex sign

Posted on June 28, 2025 by John Updike Society

Small museums love their donors, and a big thanks goes out to John Gerber and family for the donation of a large hex sign, jug, and other objects painted by famed Berks County “hexologist” Johnny Ott. Ott spent 19 years reproducing old barn signs of the Pennsylvania Germans, symbols they brought to this country. The sign on the kitchen wainscoting was a design from 1932, John Updike’s birth year. Updike’s maternal grandmother was a strong believer in hex signs and influenced young Updike, who later described them as “witchcraft of a benign sort.”

“Faith is a strong thing,” Ott said. “If a person believes something hard enough, it can become true and the ultimate is to have faith in Almighty God.”

The corner cupboard, donated years ago by Miranda Updike, was used by the Updike family in this house. In his short story “The Black Room” Updike described “the stained pine corner cabinet that held their good china, including the Philadelphia blueware whose broken plates had been one of the costs of the move from Alton.” Miranda recalled that when her father lived in Beverly Farms, Mass., he tried to move this two-piece cupboard by himself. The top section fell on him, breaking all but one pane of glass.

The John Updike Childhood Home, 117 Philadelphia Ave., Shillington, Pa., has a Pennsylvania Historic Marker and is on the National Registry of Historic Places. It’s open most Saturdays from 12-2 p.m.

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Updike ‘Still Life’ paintings now on display

Posted on June 19, 2025 by John Updike Society

John Updike’s children recently donated more one-of-a-kind objects to The John Updike Childhood Home & Museum, among them two still life paintings that their father and mother had painted side-by-side while Updike was a student at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford, England. Michael Updike said that as a trailing spouse who happened to have majored in art as an undergrad, his mother talked her way into sitting in and participating in John’s classes. Mary sat to his right, Michael pointed out, given the placement of objects on each canvas. The paintings are referenced in Updike’s short story “Still Life” (from Pigeon Feathers, reprinted in The Early Stories): 

“At the greengrocer’s on Monday morning they purchased still life ingredients. The Constable School owned a great bin of inanimate objects, from which Leonard had selected an old mortar and pestle. His idea was then to buy, to make a logical picture, some vegetables that could be ground, and to arrange them in a Chardinesque tumble. But what, really, was ground, except nuts? The grocer did have some Jamaican walnuts.

“Don’t be funny, Leonard,” Robin said. “All those horrid little wrinkles, we’d be at it forever.”

“Well, what else could you grind?”

“We’re not going to grind anything; we’re going to paint it. What we want is something smoothe.“

“Oranges, miss?” the lad in charge offered.

“Oh, oranges. Everyone’s doing oranges—looks like a pack of advertisements for vitamin C. What we want…” Frowning, she surveyed the produce, and Leonard’s heart, plunged in the novel intimacy of shopping with a woman, beat excitedly. “Onions,” Robin declared. “Onions are what we want.” 

John gave his still life to his mother, who displayed it at the Plowville house, while Mary kept hers. Now the paintings are together again, above the bed that John painted with his mother—John’s on the left, Mary’s on the right . . . just as in Oxford.

Visit and look at the paintings up close and vote: Who did it best? John (left) or Mary (right)?

Many thanks to Elizabeth Updike Cobblah, David Updike, Michael Updike, and Miranda Updike for their latest donations and continued support!

The John Updike Childhood Home & Museum, 117 Philadelphia Ave. in Shillington, Pa., is open most Saturdays from 12-2 p.m. For questions about visiting the museum, contact director Maria Lester, johnupdikeeducation@gmail.com.

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McDonnell leads creative writing class at the Updike house

Posted on May 28, 2025 by John Updike Society

Maria McDonnell, who has taught college writing for 20 years and received a Pushcart nomination for her poem “Joyride,” taught a creative writing class at the Updike house on March 15, 2025. The Updike family hoped that the house would become a literary center as well as museum, and under the direction of Maria Lester it has thrived as both.

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Muhlenberg H.S. students visit Updike house

Posted on May 28, 2025 by John Updike Society

AP literature students from Muhlenberg High School enjoyed touring the John Updike Childhood Home with their teacher, Mr. Burkart, on May 21, 2025.

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Governor Mifflin H.S. teachers donate winnings to Updike House

Posted on May 28, 2025 by John Updike Society

Governor Mifflin High School teachers and students appeared on Season 5, Episode 24 of The ClassH-Room game show, which airs on Fox29-Philadelphia. Students Rachel, Gianna, and Jacob faced off against their favorite teachers—Mr. Kurtz, Mr. Maurer, and Mr. McGovern—in a test of knowledge, with the teachers coming out on top. Thanks to the winners for donating their $500 prize to The John Updike Childhood Home. After Mr. Kurtz and his local history class toured the house on May 19, 2025, a check was accepted on behalf of the John Updike Society by Charlie Lester. Updike graduated from the high school in 1950 when it was called Shillington High School, which he could see (and visitors can still see) from his bedroom window. Thanks GMHS teachers! Here’s a link to the full game-show episode.

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Twin Valley H.S. volunteers tend Updike house garden

Posted on May 28, 2025 by John Updike Society

There are many ways of volunteering to help at The John Updike Childhood Home, owned and operated as a museum by the 501c3 non-profit John Updike Society. On May 12, National Honor Society members from Twin Valley High School volunteered their time to pull weeds from the garden. Thank you, students! We love our volunteers!!

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