I like touring Historic places. There are a few places that I would go back and visit including Connor Prairie in Indiana, Colonial Williamsburg, and Old Sturbridge Village. Each historic site has their own way of presenting the history of their particular area either interacting with the characters of the time period or the docents chat with you. I can’t quite decide which I prefer though I suspect I prefer being able to chat with the docents. I usually ask about quilting and textiles but didn’t have much of an opportunity on this tour. There were some beautiful textiles that the tour guide said were locally milled.
Two of the docents at Historic Richmond Town were amazing and we later learned that they are father & daughter and are great musicians to boot! Dad spends his days in the wood shop making a variety of tools that farmers and folks living away from town would make for themselves. These needed to be functional rather than pretty. The amount of work invested in these items would depend on their later use. He also explained that children would be assigned the chore of making butter as punishment. Hee hee! I’d like to say poor kids but ya gotta learn. He also makes butter presses, which for the time are unusual as these are just for pretty rather than functional. Of course I didn’t get pics of them. We’ll go back sometime soon.
I did learn that they do head to OSV when they need period fabric for their costumes. In looking over the OSV website they’re having a quilt weekend. If you’re in the area the weekend of August 18 & 19th take some time to visit. Textiles were an important part of American life at the time since everything needed to be made locally. I’d love to see more of that come back. Seeing abandoned mills all over the north east is gutting. And to know that silk was produced so close in Paterson, NJ – getting silk produced here for my quilts would be so great!
I’m heading to ME this weekend for a family visit and to see Feather Zone hanging in ME quilts. I’m really excited as I get to meet one of my quilting friends in person. I’ve wanted to meet Mickey DePre for a really long time and this is my weekend. If you’re at ME Quilts please say hi!
Happy quilting!
Teri
Sounds like a lovely time! And give Miss Mickey a hug from me!!!
Teri, thanks for sharing your trip. My BFF comes from that area, it’s nice to hear some of the history. And thanks for the tip about OSV and the quilts–that’s a day trip we might be able to do. The silk mills in Paterson are where my grandparents had some of their first jobs after coming here My grandfather and father also worked in the dye houses. Thanks for the memory land visit 🙂 SueinNH