After Morris (Morrie) David Dorenfeld and his partner, Robert Francis Davis, moved into a century-old farmhouse in Fremont, New Hampshire, they discovered a red maple loom tucked away in the attic. Morrie later said of the loom:
“That loom was the catalyst–I came to weaving through the serendipity of discovering it. Like the house, it was a survivor. It was awe-inspiring to me, exquisitely put together with mortise-and-tenon joints. It was massive and beautiful, like a piece of sculpture, even though mice had eaten all the heddles and it was covered in bird droppings. It caught my imagination. Women might have been using it 100 or even 200 years ago with no electricity or running water, making the essentials of their lives–fabric for clothes, blankets for marth, curtains for the windows. We disassembled and brought that loom with us when we moved to Maine. I have never reassembled it, but it led to my taking lessons and buying a vertical tapestry loom. It opened the door to this ancient, ageless, and iconic medium which has held me in its thrall for over four decades.”