Katrina Trask Week 2026
August 17th-21st, 2026
Join us as we celebrate our visionary founder, her life and her ideals.
Katrina Trask is perhaps best known today as founder of the Yaddo Artist Residency in Saratoga Springs - one aspect of a complex and purposeful life. By her 39 th birthday, Katrina had experienced the loss of all four of her children, the destruction of her Saratoga home by fire, and the beginning of life-long severe heart issues. Rising from the devastation, she devoted her remaining 30 years to improving the world around her through relentless social activism for the laboring classes, professional writing (18 books and plays, and numerous shorter works), the peace movement, spiritual exploration, and dedication to “the up-lifting and all-redeeming power” of love.
Katrina and local Troy resident Mary Wiltsie Fuller founded Wiawaka Holiday House in 1903, intended to be a place of rest and recreation for working women but also to be “a work of the spirit.”
“Katrina Trask’s Saratoga Legacy”
Rumara Jewett, with readings by Tamie Ehinger and Michael Belanger
August 17th, 2026
7:00pm-8:30pm
Just the lecture is $20,
get dinner and the lecture for just $40.
Eminent Saratogian Katrina Trask (1853-2022), author, philanthropist, visionary, and founder of the Yaddo Artist Residency which first opened 100 years ago in 1926, co-founded Wiawaka in 1903 along with Troy resident Mary Wiltsie Fuller. We review Katrina Trask’s inspiring legacy, with a focus on the considerable role she played in the Town (City as of 1915) of Saratoga Springs.
Costumed readers will interpret quotes from period documents. Readings from Mrs. Trask’s works are interspersed with historical narrative and period newspaper accounts, describing her work and her productive partnership with her husband Spencer and their close friend George Foster Peabody. This presentation offers a documentary-style historical overview of the remarkable woman who in 1908 would gift to Mary Fuller the Wiawaka property in exchange for “a bunch of May flowers.”
“For the Love of Roses”
August 18th, 2026
7:00pm-8:30pm
With Eileen Egan Mack and Michael Clement
Just the lecture is $20, get dinner and the lecture for just $40.
“For the Love of Roses”-a bouquet of tunes celebrating the Rose, such as “Red is the Rose,” “The Rose,” “Misty Roses,” “Spanish Harlem,” “Only a Rose,” among others. This program of ‘rose’ music is in honor of Katrina Trask whose love of roses is reflected in the public rose garden she created, in the decorative arts in her home, and in her poetry and music. Several of Mrs. Trask’s songs will round out the program presented by vocalist Eileen Egan Mack and pianist Michael Clement.
Eileen Egan Mack is a vocalist whose repertoire is ever broadening, from jazz standards and pop songs, to the world of classical music, especially art songs. She has a lifelong love of music and a lifelong practice of music performance including as a lead singer in rock bands, big bands, and jazz ensembles, as well as musical theatre roles.
Michael Clement, pianist, has studied at the Eastman School of Music, the Chautauqua Institute, the University of Arizona and the University of Southern California. He was pianist for the Tucson Symphony, Assistant Conductor for the Long Beach Opera and director of the Opera Workshop at California State University at Long Beach and has served on the staff of Florentine Opera at Milwaukee. Locally, Michael has served as the Music Director for Opera Excelsior, and staff accompanist for Skidmore College and the College of St. Rose.
Wiawaka Historic Presentation and Tour led by Marina Skea
August 19th
Lunch from 12pm-1pm tour 1pm-2pm $10 for just tour lunch and tour $30
Please call in advance to schedule your spot in the tour (518) 668-9690.
Victorian Wiawaka Tour with “Harriet Langdon Pryun Rice”
Join Mary Fuller’s friend Harriet Langdon Pryun Rice (portrayed by Marina Skea) for an historical tour of the grounds and buildings of Wiawaka. Harriet was one of nine women who witnessed the 1907 Wiawaka Holiday House Certificate of Incorporation and served as one the first members of the board of directors. She and husband William Gorham Rice Jr. lived in the Rice mansion which eventually became part of the Albany Institute of History and Art. The Rices’ entertained many visiting European diplomats, leaders in the realm of art and literature and other world famous personages. The Rice home was the International House of its era. Harriet’s home appears with great frequency in the society notes of the time, as Mrs. Rice was a very active hostess. (In the event of inclement weather a Wiawaka history presentation will take place indoors. You are still free to explore the grounds should you choose to do so following the presentation.) Lunch and tour $25.
“The Universality of Katrina Trask”
Rumara Jewett with Lezlie Dana as Katrina Trask
August 20th, 2026
7:00pm-8:30pm
Just the lecture is $20,
get dinner and the lecture for just $40.
Katrina Trask (1852 – 1922) founded Wiawaka Holiday House in 1903 along with Troy resident Mary Fuller. Mrs. Trask is best known today as visionary founder of the Yaddo Artist Residency at her home in Saratoga Springs; the first artists arrived at Yaddo 100 years ago in 1926. 18 years earlier, artists including George O’Keefe arrived at Wiawaka to participate in a Lake George artist residency called Amitola. We listen as Katrina Trask talks about her spiritual exploration, her social activism, Lake George, Wiawaka, Amitola and other topics.
Discovering George Foster Peabody
August 21st, 2026
7:00pm-8:30pm
Just the lecture is $20, get dinner and the lecture for just $40.
Over the past eight years, Underwood has meticulously researched and documented Peabody’s friendships with Edward Morse Shepard, Spencer and Katrina Trask, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Adolph Ochs, and John Howard Melish, among others. His work also explores Peabody’s role in regional projects such as Prospect Mountain, Shepard Park, Diamond Island, the Wiawaka Center for Women, the Lake George Association, the Caldwell-Lake George Library, the Saratoga Reservation Commission, Saratoga Spa State Park, the New York State Forest Tree Nursery, and Yaddo.
The culmination of this research is Underwood’s 500+ page book, Discovering George Foster Peabody, a comprehensive work that brings together archival research, correspondence, and rare photographs to reintroduce one of New York’s most quietly influential figures to modern readers.
Glenn Underwood is an artist, author, and historian from Upstate New York whose family operates Twin Birches Cottages in Lake George, a property that stands on the former grounds of Abenia, the summer estate of banker and philanthropist George Foster Peabody.