Living History Days

Hello! I’m back!!

Here’s a rundown of the recent Living History Days I participated in. This was put on by and in benefit for our local historical society, sort of as a kickoff for them moving the museum to a new building in “Old Town” a site with pioneer buildings already on it.

Sorry, I wanted to link the museums website for you here, but they both appear to be defunct at this time.

Day 1-Thursday

Started the day by saving a snapping turtle who was hanging out in the middle of the road. I have no idea how he had not been hit yet.

It finally dried out enough that we could get the tipi’s raised. We had a week of almost constant rain prior to this day. Muddy wet ground won’t hold the stakes down well and will create an airborne sail if the canvas gets loose. While it’s fun to ride a sail over the ocean, getting slammed into the hard ground held no appeal for me.

Susan, Maddy, Susan’s granddaughter and I were the four women who raised the two tipi’s, until Susan’s son came by to pound the stakes in. It was an adventure for me since it was the first time I’ve ever been involved with raising one before. I learned a lot from this day!

These tipi’s are canvas, and I honestly can not imagine how the indigenous peoples who used this method of housing did this with much heavier hides. It would certainly take many more women than we had to get this done. It is a serious upper body work out to do just what we did!

When we got done with that, it was quite late in the day so I decided to just go home and not get changed into my Colonial attire for only a few hours that it would still be open to the public.

As I was leaving, the other group of folks that were participating was just pulling in to set up. I did not get to meet them this day.

Day 2-Friday

Started the day off with the realization that my jumps (lightly boned stays) no longer fit. I have not tried them on in about 5 years and apparently, to put it nicely, I grew some since then. Since I was in a hurry, I grabbed one of Rob’s Colonial style shirts and threw it over myself. Thankfully everything else still fit.

I got the car loaded and headed out to the site. We had rain again overnight, a pretty substantial storm, and everything was pretty slick and muddy. I had two small wool blankets I was using for ground cover so my wheel was not sitting right on the wet ground.

At the site, I found the other folks did indeed get set up and ready to go before the storm hit, thankfully. I was introduced to Tonya, Nathan, and their two grandkids and we discussed the going’s on in camp. They said they got a bit wet overnight but not too badly. We decided who was going to set up their display where and then I was invited to join them for breakfast. I got set up while they were cooking away. The sun was out and it was getting pretty warm already and the humidity did not help much. Breakfast was fabulous!

Susan and Tonya’s group portrays trappers’ wives, around the 1840’s era of the mountain man. Their display consisted of several heavily beaded Native American dresses and tipi bags made from hides and some of wool. Their work is beautiful! The dresses were recreations of existing dresses located in the Smithsonian museum and from a private collection. Susan was also going to demonstrate hide scraping but the weather was not cooperative enough to do that this year.

They also had a display of a cap lock firearm and the associated items that go along with that. I set up my flintlock near their table so folks could see the difference between the two period firearms.

The older grandkids were showing knife and hawk throwing and supervising the folks that wanted to try their hand at that.

Both local newspapers came thru asking questions and taking pictures and videos. If I see them online I’ll post the links for you.

I stayed only until noon. Rain was moving in again and space in the tents and tipi’s was at a premium and not really able to accommodate my display. I packed back up and made it home just as the storm started.

Probably a good thing anyhow, my arms were still incredibly sore from tipi set up the day before and the motion of spinning for hours was not helping much.

It was also getting to be a bit much for me emotionally. This is the first event I had done without Robyn. Given the setting and the memories surrounding it, I kept looking for him, I kept listening for his voice, and I kept waiting for him to come up behind me, put his hands on my shoulders and kiss the top of my head. I was having a hard time keeping tears from slipping out. I had a good cry in the shower when I got home.

Day 3-Saturday

Got there in the morning in time for another wonderful breakfast! Everything tastes so much better cooked over an open fire! Yumm!

I did take a new liberty with my Colonial clothing. I wore Rob’s weskit this time. It looked much better than the shirt from the day before. At least it is period correct, even if it was not a common item of clothing worn by a woman. I also added my Bergere hat, which is a low crown large brim straw hat decorated with ribbons and my fichu. The sun the day before had me looking for any shade I could find and this hat is good for that!

Tonya and her crew did change up how the canvas was on their kitchen fly so we had more shade in front of that, which I was grateful for.

They estimated about 70 visitors the day before and there were probably about 50 that came thru on Saturday. The historical society put on a BBQ of beef and/or bison burgers, beans, and chips. And the ice cream shop was open again too!! I sat spinning and talking to folks, and it was a pretty good day.

Until……

I walked over to use the bathroom and a gust of wind hit the canvas over where we had been sitting knocking a tent pole over and wacking my wheel some. It would not spin correctly and my day ended at 3pm.

Got it home and fixed. One of the legs got knocked out enough to make it unstable. Hammered it back in and it no longer rocks like Elvis. But it has a squeek in the treadle now and I need to see about that today.

Day 4-Sunday

Our last day here.

Made it in time for another great breakfast. Set up and got to spinning.

Now that we had the shade fly up, I passed on wearing my Bergere hat. It’s a great hat but having hat pins pulling at my hair in every breeze had gotten uncomfortable the day before. I really didn’t want to give myself a big old bald spot on the top of my head.

The morning visitors were pretty sparse, but I’m not surprised since it was a Sunday and folks were in church. It picked up considerably after about 1pm. I would guess another 40-50 people came thru.

Packed up my gear around 4pm and headed home. After several days of sitting on a very uncomfortable chair, my poor butt cheeks were quite sore, and there was no way I was going to be able to sit there spinning anymore. My comfy recliner was calling my name!

Got the car unpacked so my son could go to work Monday, had a good shower and dinner before sitting down and not moving for a few hours LOL.

Day 5-Monday

Tear down day. We started with another fab breakfast before getting down to the work of breaking camp. I grabbed my table, other chair, and medical bag so they were out of the way. Got Susans trailer repacked, and then started with the tipi’s.

Just then the wind made its presence known. Again, trying to keep our feet on the ground instead of getting a ride on the sail was quite the adventure. This time we had more people around to help so it was not horrible bad. Got it all folded up and bagged, took down the poles and loaded them on the trailer, it was all good. Helped Tonya and her crew with their gear and packing. Hooked Susan’s trailer up to my truck and towed to back to her house.

All in all we were done by 1:30 and everyone had a well deserved shower!

Yes, everyone was pretty rank by that time, including me, although I had more showers in between days, where they did not. The wood for the cook and heating fires was really pitchy so everything had a pretty good layer of sticky black soot on it. The camping folks all said it was the dirtiest camp they ever had to endure because of it.

So for me, it was fun but bittersweet without my Rob there. He would have enjoyed the heck out of the whole thing. He loved teaching people about the history of the era, both Mountain Man and Colonial.

Rob caught me off guard at one event several years ago. He had a group of kids around him and he was explaining how a flintlock works. Then he shifted into what I was doing. I was amazed to find that he had been listening to me, and asked me all the right questions, and could explain to the kids exactly what I was doing, how I was doing it, and why I was doing it that way. He was the first, and only, man to be interested enough in my craft to learn it. I was blown away! How I miss that man!

The board members of the museum were very happy with the turn out and how we presented our materials. They were talking about putting up a dirt berm so that we would be able to demonstrate shooting next year. Seems they want us back!

I’ll need to find a better more comfortable way to use my spinning chair before then. My poor butt cant take another 3 days of this again! I also need a new bottle of sunscreen. Mine apparently lost it’s poop and I did get a burn. Oh well.

I wish you all a very happy and safe 4th of July!

Blessed Be!