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They’re partying like it’s 1776.
While most will be celebrating America’s 250th birthday this weekend with sizzling BBQs and firework displays — Jack, 74, and Celeste Sherry, 71, will be donning 18th-century attire, role-playing as Benjamin and Deborah Read Franklin.
The West Nyack couple has spent the majority of their 48-year marriage participating in Revolutionary War reenactment events throughout the country.
For this year’s milestone celebration, the duo has been busier than ever, as the child-free retirees will engage in 80 different colonial-themed performances, lectures and meet-and-greets throughout the country, stuffing the trunk of their Honda Odyssey with Jack’s colonial coats and Celeste’s bulky spinning equipment as they go, posing as the founding father and his wife.
Having been introduced to historical reenactments in 1978 after reading a magazine spread on the bicentennial of the Battle of Monmouth, a 26-year-old Jack suggested participating in a local costumed battle demonstration to his then 24-year-old wife, who initially thought her new husband was “crazy.”
“I [said], ‘You want us to do what?!’” Celeste, a now-retired teacher and longtime theater fan, recalled to The Post. “I wasn’t sure about it at all. But after we got involved at the same time and I got bitten by the bug, I just loved it. Maybe it’s a bit of the frustrated actress in me.”
Jack spent his younger years playing a Loyalist soldier, an American colonist who fought for the British Crown during the Revolutionary War.
At the same time, Celeste acted as a camp follower, a woman who accompanied Revolutionary War armies and was tasked with domestic duties like sewing and cooking.
These days, Jack devotes the majority of his colonial time to acting as Ben Franklin — a gig he picked up over 20 years ago after a colleague mentioned that when Jack turned his head a certain way, he bore an uncanny resemblance to the founding father.
The then-teacher went all in on the period persona, undergoing research and growing out his hair into a Ben Franklin-style coif.
“I have stories about Franklin and his life,” said Jack, who often uses a pair of 18th-century bifocals (which Franklin invented in 1784), a walking stick, and a kite to get into character.
While playing the part, he often talks about Franklin’s childhood in Boston and his involvement in the printing industry.
To join in on the historical fun, Celeste plays Franklin’s common-law wife, Deborah Read Franklin.
“At first, they [their family] really thought we were crazy — my mother would always say, ‘Aren’t you tired of doing that stuff yet?’” Celeste explained to The Post. “But I’m still very excited and enjoying it just as much.”
‘It’s just an awful lot of fun bringing history to life‘
The historical impersonators have gathered period-piece clothes from various places over the years.
Celeste has about three or four outfits, whereas Jack has had the same brown wool outfit for 20 years. He admits that in the summer, especially in this 100-degree heatwave, it’s “so hot,” so he recently acquired a linen tan suit that was hand-sewn by a contact of his.
Playing the historic duo has become second nature for the Sherrys, who often drive to their events together in character, making sure to carefully go over prop and equipment checklists prior, a ritual that started about a year ago when Jack forgot his kite at home.
“It almost feels like something is terribly missing when one of us goes off to do an event by ourselves, and the other one stays home,” said the Mrs. Franklin impersonator.
The patriotic pair emphasized that their family has grown “very used to seeing us go all over the place” for their historic happenings — and are no longer phased by seeing them decked out in shifts and britches.
“It’s just an awful lot of fun bringing history to life,” the living history buff added. “People can see, feel, smell, hear and sometimes even taste history being created in front of them, and that’s a wonderful feeling.”
‘All in the songs’
In 1972, after tag-teaming her historian father’s traveling show on the 19th-century Wisconsin lumberjack scene as a teen, Linda Russell discovered her niche as a historical musician when a frightening stalking incident on the streets of Manhattan prompted her to duck into the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site for cover.
“It said it was open, and I was just like ‘Zoom!’ I went in,” Russell recalled of the mishap to The Post. “I was saved by history. After I took my tour, I was like, ‘How can I work here?’”
The site sent her to Federal Hall, where George Washington was inaugurated in 1789, where she was set up with a government job through the National Parks Service, which was eventually tailored to her as a singing tour guide.
She would go on to sing at Federal Hall for 16 years — performing a mix of 18th-century tunes, which she learned to perform on time-period instruments and stringed devices such as the penny whistle and the hammered dulcimer, while dressed in colonial garb to entertain an eclectic mix of Wall Street businessmen and student groups.
It was there that the now 76-year-old fell in love with the earliest days of America’s story.
“Music can tell us the emotional side of history,” said Russell. “It’s all about expressing feelings — it could be angry, sad, about love…I realized that you can understand the emotions of the past by singing the songs and seeing how people felt about things.”
54 years later, Russell’s work takes her all over the tri-state area for various historical societies, schools, and community events where she still employs her sweeping rep of colonial tunes.
She covers everything from sing-along classics like “Yankee Doodle” to lesser-known news-reporting “broadsides” like “What a Court Hath Old England” (satirizing the British Parliament) and “Come Haste to the Wedding” (a reported favorite of Washington, who was reportedly known to be a graceful dancer).
Russell works year-round, but told The Post that July is her busiest month, especially this year.
“(These songs) show that people back then were human beings — they suffered, they laughed, they cried,” Russel said. “It’s all in the songs.”
‘What America can be‘
Tom Pitz, a 78-year-old retired school guidance counselor based in Keswick, Virginia, never imagined that he’d still be playing Thomas Jefferson nearly 40 years after first portraying the founding father in a 1987 summer play.
Now, the requests for Pitz’s Jefferson performances, he estimates there’s been “hundreds” in total, take up a great deal of the retiree’s time — along with that of his wife Linda, who proudly serves as his “agent” and makes sure her hubby doesn’t forget his props and costumes.
For the celebratory weekend, the duo is traveling to Mount Rushmore, where Pitz will join a group of actors who annually portray the landmark’s other founding fathers, Washington, Roosevelt and Lincoln, to put on a presentation about the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence, in honor of Independence Day.
He estimates it’s nearly his 30th call to play the part this year.
Especially since retiring in 2005, “Over the years, I’ve gotten more and more requests to (play) Mr. Jefferson,” Pitz told The Post, adding that he was initially cast for standing “a little taller than most” and his once reddish hair, hallmarks of Jefferson’s signature look. “Since this year is the semiquincentennial, he seems to be in demand.”
Pitz’s fascination with America’s third president coincidentally began decades earlier, when he was a young student at the University of Virginia. It was then that he inherited a 20-volume set of Jefferson’s writings from his late grandfather, edited in 1903.
Only later would he step into Jefferson’s leather boots himself — which still manages to spark nerves.
“I get very nervous until I’m actually performing,” Pitz said, noting that he aims to offer an interpretive bridge between what Jefferson had to say and the language most 21st-century folks would understand. “Once the performance begins, he just takes over.”
“Once he puts the clothes on, the two personalities merge so perfectly together,” Linda told The Post, having watched her husband perform as the historic figurehead for the six years they’ve been married.
“Because he’s lived with this man for so long, has read his words, felt his heart and mind.”
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