Simple Gifts : A Memoir of a Shaker Village

by June Sprigg

In Simple Gifts, June Sprigg tells the story of one of America's last Shaker communities--Canterbury Shaker Village, in Canterbury, New Hampshire--during its twilight years, and of its seven remarkable "survivor" women, who were among the last representatives of our longest-lived and best-known communal utopian society. As a college student Sprigg spent a summer among them, and here she gracefully interweaves the narrative of their lives with the broader history of Shakers in America as she shows us how her experiences there affected her own life and opened the door to her creativity.

Gleaning information from old records and journals that she pored over that summer and later, Sprigg brings to life the generations of Canterbury Shakers from the eighteenth century to the present--their customs, their architecture, their spirituality. She also explores the social and cultural forces and the internal imperatives and tensions that caused membership to decrease, all of which, by 1972, brought the community to crisis.

Chronicling the daily life of the village as she found it, Sprigg uncovers the affirming energies of the Shakers--the prominence of mutual love and respect, the devoted tradition of mothering surrogate children, and, above all, the surviving women's spirited eccentricities. She reveals the Shakers as individuals--their personal histories, their wildly different beginnings, what they gave up to join the Shaker community, and, more important, what they gained.

Through her lively text and drawings and her intimate connection with the community, Sprigg brings us close to its people with a book that both enlightens and inspires.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Religion, History, Spirituality, Biography Memoir, Theology

240 pages, Hardcover

First published May 19, 1998

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1972, June Sprigg, then a college student, took a summer job as a tour guide at Canterbury Shaker Village in New Hampshire. The job included room and board, which meant that rather remarkably, she lived in close quarters with the last few remaining elderly Shaker sisters, and formed a strong bond with them that changed her life. This is a touching and appealing memoir, and an elegiac look at a way of life that had been fading for more than a century, and which Sprigg knew would very soon be completely gone

I first read Simple Gifts back when it was first published in 1998, and felt the need to reread it after visiting Hancock Shaker Village (in Massachusetts) this past November, which I found to be a lovely place pervaded by a deep sense of peace. Maybe someday I'll visit Canterbury too.

[Howard Mansfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sprigg’s “memoir of a Shaker village” is a tribute to the kindness, clarity, and devotion of the last Shaker sisters, who she got to know while working as a tour guide at Canterbury Shaker Village. Even in their twilight years, the Shaker example burned brightly. “The power to ignite was still there, the light still bright enough to kindle another small flame,” Sprigg writes.

The Shakers used to take in orphans, widows and widowers. Though they were closed to converts by 1965, they still knew how to care for the “world’s people,” as they called outsiders. For Sprigg they were a “half dozen grandmothers” who helped her become an adult.

This is a sweet, affectionate book by a Shaker scholar who has caught the last moments of a once-radical faith, the bittersweet, gentle end of one of the most remarkable utopian communities America has ever seen.

[Kristen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Over summer break from college, the author worked in a Shaker community for the summer of 1972 as a tour guide. This book is her account of that time. Worthwhile in that this is likely the last account of a living Shaker community from someone who directly observed it, and what's more, observed it shortly before the community went extinct. Frustrating in that for all the uniqueness of that experience, the woman can't write.

[Aaron West · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was the right choice for me, despite it taking me much longer to finish than it should have. June Sprigg, at nineteen-years-old in 1972, began one of several college summers working at the Canterbury Shaker's Village in New Hampshire. This book is her memoir of that time, complete with some of her own talented illustrations and tidbits of history.

As a whole, the book was slow-paced, wholesome, and reflective. Reading it was like taking a little break during a busy day (something I did often while reading this). Sprigg is a talented writer, make no mistake. The pacing and organization of the book, however, left some to be desired at times.

Really, though, this review is not one for me to make judgments. It's so personal to her experience--almost like a pet project--that I think criticism only goes so far. For what it was, it was a delight to read. Not "plot heavy," no twists or turns--but that was the beauty of it.

I think what interested me most in these pages were Sprigg's descriptions of the few Shaker women who were left in the village: she shapes some chapters as sort of character profiles--and also the historical asides she includes about how the Shaker system, faith tradition, and the villages/leadership structure itself worked. Hearing about the history and larger movements within this branch of faith was especially rewarding. I could read a book simply on their practice, beliefs, and history.

Overall, it was a nice read. Well worth it despite my being quite ready to move to the next one.

[Brent · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir of a woman that worked one summer in one of the last aging Shaker villages in he 1970s taught me a lot about this uniquely American religious group. I knew basically nothing about the group before this book and I found some of their values of community, adoption, and commitment to an alternate way of life intriguing. The book is well written and includes lots of endearing stories. This is a great book for anyone coming of age that wants to know more about the value of past generations wisdom and/or alternative Christian traditions.

[Sondra Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

We visited Canterbury Shaker Village in September 2025 and I picked up this book from the gift shop while there. I found it to be a delightful, engaging memoir. Set in the summer of 1972 it is a very different coming of age story. The detail and emotion with which Ms Sprigg shares her experience as a 19 year old college student living among the remaining Shakers evoked memories of a seventeen year old me in 1972. I asked many of the same questions. I really liked the book.

[Bettina Magliato · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great story about one young woman’s coming of age in the Shaker community during the early 1970s. I was intrigued given the disparity between Shaker life and American teenage life during that time. Given the subject, it was a very slow read, but that added to the overall sense of calm while reading this book.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a short book about the author's experience living with some of the remaining Shaker women in New Hampshire in the 1970s. It is as much about the history of the Shakers as it is about lessons in living. I found it interesting from the historical perspective.

[Pam Saunders · Rating 3 out of 5]

If the reader has no interest in the Shakers then this would be a dull read but for those, like me, who are fascinated by their philosophy and lives then it gives a new perspective.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the best written book, but as an honest picture of the last Shakers at the Canterbury Shaker Village, it cannot be beat!

Thank you June.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the strongest writing, but an interesting character study of some of the final Shakers.
Gave me some new context to modern Shakers and the Ken Burns documentary.

[Nate · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is an amazing example of how lazy writing can butcher even the most fascinating of experiences. June Sprigg, who got to spend a summer with the Shakers, regurgitates that time with almost no emotion or depth.

The Shakers, a religious group started in the 1700s that has historically been known for their compassion, craftsmanship, and celibacy, are now (basically) extinct. Sprigg's time spent during the last few years of this community was extremely special and rare, and it's sad that her book offered little more than what felt like a sprucing up of some journal entries.

If you are interested in the Shakers, don't start here-and actually, don't end here either.

The documentary that Ken Burns did on the Shakers (she does mention that they loved him), offers far more insight into the workings and shares much more of the spirit of this community.

I greatly appreciate that Sprigg did write this book, but given that all but three Shakers are now gone, it feels like far more than just a missed opportunity.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very sweet and enjoyable. Slow to read but I learned a lot. Good descriptive writing.

"August - Mildred's garden reached a new crescendo of glory as the days began to grow shorter rivaled by the wild beauty of the roadside. Constellations of small purple asters appeared in both places. Goldenrod drifted over the fields. The sky itself changed now, no more the soft, hazy blue of June; it grew sharper and deeper, more keenly blue. Every day twilight came maybe sixty or seventy heartbeats sooner."

Great spirituality and wisdom here.

"Inspiration: inbreathing - feel the warm breath of a power greater than yourself moving in you and through you to do it's work."

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sprigg's memoir of how she first lived with the Canterbury Shakers during a summer while she was a college student. It is both a coming of age story, and also an explanation of how Sprigg became a shaker scholar. She doesn't offer many insights about her personal life, but she does show how a young person could be attracted to the older Shaker sisters and to the kind of family and commnity offered by Shaker societies.

[Liddy Barlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic -- a culture I've always been interested in, a writer who really remembers being nineteen, and a lot of great things to think about: "I saw that goodness could be a brave moral choice, not a mere refuge for the faint of heart." Marred only by a few infelicitous phrases. [Reviewed in the "book journal" I kept throughout 1999.]

[Marykickel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I had the opportunity that June Sprigg writes about in this book. I'm glad I got to live vicariously through her writing. Just when I need a break from a culture obsessed with youth, beauty, material goods and superfluous things, I read this memoir of summer spent with seven remaining Shaker sisters in the New Hampshire community. I love this book.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this very much. After visiting Canterbury Shaker Village last month, I remembered that this book had been sitting in the bookcase for a long time. I think I started it once before, but didn't finish it. If you have a special interest in the Shakers, or have visited the Village in NH, you'll enjoy this.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting account of life among the last remaining Shakers.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance]

June spends a summer with the last of the Shakers

[Anne Enste · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having visited the Canterbury Shaker Village just one week before reading this I found it just wonderful.

[Marty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice little book, take the time read it. The world could really use some shaker common sense these days.