The Rock of Ages Granite Quarry Visitors Center in Barre is celebrating Valentine’s Day with granite rings, pendants, and pins made on site as well as a host of cheese boards, mortar & pestles, lazy susans, clocks and other eclectic rock and mineral gifts from around the world. The jewelry is handcrafted at the Visitors Center by Barre native Marcelle Moran, who turns 84 this year. Moran follows the legacy of turn-of-the-century author and notable Barre physician Dr. DeForest Clinton Jarvis.
Dr. Jarvis attended the University of Vermont and in 1909 launched his medical practice in Barre. A familiar community figure, in 1958 Dr. Jarvis published Folk Medicine, A Vermont Doctor’s Guide to Good Health. The book, supporting the first documented medical recommendation to use apple cider vinegar tonics to achieve robust health, occupied the New York Times bestseller list for two years and ultimately sold more than a million copies.
Upon retirement in the 1960s, Dr. Jarvis pursued his passion for crafts by creating the first granite jewelry for the Rock of Ages Visitors Center. At about the same time, young Marcelle Moran came to host travelers at the Center, which this year celebrates its 90th year of quarry tours. When Dr. Jarvis relinquished making jewelry due to age, Moran learned how to make the jewelry for the Center shop, and the tradition continues.
Moran has been a familiar face at the Visitors Center for more than five decades. Todd Paton, Rock of Ages Director of Visitor Services, notes, “The legacy of a country doctor endures in Barre through Rock of Ages and Marcelle Moran. With hands as steady as a rock, Marcelle’s jewelry as well as her love for her craft endures the test of time.”
