A Trip Back in Time

Last Friday we spent the morning going back in time and discovering how life was for farming families in the 1930's at the Selu Farm in Radford. The home,whcih is maintained by Radford University, was a reconstruction of a previously existing home. Some of the original outbuildings were still there. A few weeks ago Cailin and I had read all of the American Girl--Kit series, she's a girl who lived in Cincinatti, OH during the Great Depression. In book 4 her aunt from coal mining country of West Virginia comes to live with them. It was fun to see that many of the things the tour guides told us of the farming family's life we had learned about already through Kit and her Aunt Millie. We're also reading "Where the Red Fern Grows" which is also placed in the 1930's time period.

We toured room by room to investigate what life was like. Here we learn in the front living area what some of the responsibilities of the women folk were about. It's much of the same as our day, only very few convinences (and we would certianly not consisder them to be such for us) They wasted nothing, flour sacks became cloth for quilts, curtians, dish towels, and dresses.

Here the guide is showing how 'wonderful' a sewing machine was....(It was rather difficult for her to keep the maching going consistently for a seam to be sewn. I'm really thankful for my more updated Singer sewing machine. I'm sure the ladies who used these machines many years ago were grateful, as they didn't have to do all the work by hand anymore.
We also learned about the straw ticks that they slept on, how a full sized bed slept 3 or more people. We also know where the saying 'Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite" came from. Bugs like to sleep and eat in straw mattresses too.

Connor and Jared, the only boys in our group, were eager to see where the 'men' stuff was. Ahhh, that was the next stop, out to the corn fields. The kids were given many math problems to solve--they had to know how much corn to plant to feed all the animals and people. Plus they figured out how many miles a kid the age of Connor and Jared would have walked from the begining of planting time to the end of the harvest. (About 400 miles)

Plowing, furrowing, and then the planting of the corn. Here the boys play the part of the horses to plant the fields with corn.

The next station was the bee keeping. Finding a bee tree was a wonderful thing indeed. Not only would they have sweet honey for thier corn bread and biscuts, but they could sell it to obtain additional income.

Here is a narration on bees by Cailin:

The Queen Bee and Her Workers

by Cailin Hale

A bunch of homeshooled people got in their cars and drove off to a place where they showed us what it was like to live in 1930. We went because we wanted to learn. The person who showed us about bees, who was a homeschool dad, is also a beekeeper in Pulaski. I like bees. He showed us the queen bee. She might be called the queen bee, but she is not an extremely powerful bee, she is a slave to the hive. He explained she had to lay eggs. She must lay tons of eggs every day. To become a queen bee a larva is given a lot more royal jelly that the other larva. It makes her abdomen bigger and fatter. The queen bee kills off all the other queen bees unless they go off and make a new hive because there's only one queen bee in a hive.

Bees provide us lots of things- fruits, berries and vegetables by pollinating the flowers. They also use pollin to make yummy, yummy honey. That's why I like bees.

Upstairs in the girls room we discussed quilting and what names were given to the different squares. I was amazed at how small the hand stitching was. In the boys upstairs bedroom we saw a cross cut section of the house....no insulation! I can relate to how cold it must've been for them during the winter.

Next stop, the Parlor

The Parlor

by Connor Hale

The parlor was where the family welcomed guests. This room was only used when company was over, so it had the fanciest furniture. It is here they would keep their musical instruments like the pipe organ, Victorla, or bangos for entertainment. The radio, which they listened to sparingly because they couldn't go to town often to buy new batteries,was kept in their living room. The parlor was my favorite room because I got to play the organ. You play it like a piano except you have to press a peddle up and down to keep the sound going. They also have string instruments such as a banjo or guitar. I learned that the banjo originated from Africa. That's the fancy living room parlor.

Two of the guides played music from the time period on the banjo and guitars. The song was 'The Sunny Side of Life" it was orginally performed by the Carter Family, a famous singing family from this area in the 1930's.

The next station was very hands on. We got to play again with another of their modern conveinences.....a machine that took the corn off of the cob...

...and another one that ground the corn. This grinder was able to be adjusted so the corn could be very coarse to a more fine powder type meal.

This was a favorite station as the kids all got turns shelling the corn and grinding the corn. Liam loved to play in the dry corn like it was dirt.

It was lunch time and we found ourselves outdoors learning of the botany of the area. Connor must've been extremely hungry because he actually ate hemp. Hemp is a naturally growing root that tastes like onion or garlic, only much much more stronger. (smelling his breath made me sick to my stomach) The guide also showed and shared many black walnuts....the kids ate them eagerly.

The last stop was the kitchen, how creul to be talking of food when they were all so hungry. I saw many items in this room that I've seen in my Grandma's house too. It almost felt like I was back in her kitchen as a little girl.

Finally, a picnic lunch was enjoyed by all. A very delightful ending to a wonderful day.