Category Archives: History

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Baseball & Brides

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Ah, June!  Yesterday’s weather was picture perfect for Wisconsin summer.  Life at Old World Wisconsin was happily busy.  Sorry I didn’t post last night, but I was just too tired.  We had the first Vintage Baseball game of the summer, so families were treated to an exciting and genteel sporting event, and our team won (Wullah, wullah, wullay!).  No baseball mitts, no walks, and different terminology were the biggest differences one guest reported.  I didn’t get to see the action in the baseball field because I was working at the church, and briefly, at the Irish washer-woman’s house.  I finally had a visitor willing to join me in singing a round of “Dona Nobis Pacem” a capella in the church.  The acoustics are terrific, and we really did a lovely job, I think.  I thanked her enthusiastically for the privilege.  I had a Brownie troop who filled the front pews like a classroom and stayed a good half hour, I think, asking questions about everything.  It was nice not to feel rushed like I do during a scheduled school tour, but just to let the conversation flow.  They were a great group.  Finally, about an hour before closing, a wedding party came by from the Clausing Barn area where they had their service to take pictures by the church.  They didn’t come inside, but the groomsmen invited me into a picture with them on the front steps.  I think they were attracted to my bustle.  They then staged the same shot with the bride in my place.  Perhaps I’ll be comic relief in their wedding album some day soon.  The men all wore different hats: the groom’s was a black cowboy hat which he wore with dark sunglasses.  He smoked a cigar throughout the photo session.  The bride and several of the bridesmaids were sporting elaborate tattoos.  The bride’s covered her upper back and was quite colorful.  Another guest saw them leaving and asked if they had been dressed in period costume.  “Oh, no.  Those weren’t period tattoos, either,”  I replied, and she laughed.

 

Today’s game is described on the Old World Wisconsin website like this:

“On Sunday the girls of summer, from the World War II Girls Baseball Living History League, will play their brand of 1943 ball. Joining the team on Sunday will be Milwaukee Public Radio coordinating producer Stephanie Lecci. Original girls-league players will be invited as our special guests, including Joyce Westerman who will be available after the game to sign copies of the Wisconsin Historical Society Press book about her life and sporting career, Joyce Westerman: Baseball Hero.”

Our costumer, Rachel, plays on this team.  I wish I could see them.  It reminds me of my days in the church softball league.  I played second base. 

For more information on 1860s baseball, visit the Old World Wisconsin website here.  Rules, schedule, photos and more are included.

photo courtesy of OWW website

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Sale Season

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Happy First of June!  It’s Garage/Yard/Rummage/Estate Sale season, and Steve is prowling the streets looking for used books and anything else that strikes his fancy.  He came home today excited by a “find” he had made and eager to get my reaction.  It wasn’t what he hoped for.  He dug a little deeper, and I burst into tears.  Poor guy!  It must be tough living with a hormonal woman after all those years as a bachelor.

  So, what exactly were my emotions?  That’s always an interesting question to ask when the gates are down and everything is flowing, so to speak.  I recognize that my typical posture is self-denial.  I defer, I sacrifice, I put others before me.  I was taught that was how “good Christian women” behave.  So I’ve been living with Steve for a year and a half now, in his duplex, with all his stuff, his book business and collections and whatnot, without so much as a closet for my own things.  He promised me a closet a year ago.  “My” closet is stacked 6 rows deep in his books.  Still.  My photographs, in albums and framed pictures, are in his storage unit because there’s no room for them here.  I miss having them available to look at when I’m feeling sentimental.  That’s one angle.  Here’s another.  My late husband was a lot more materialistic than I am, too.  He liked to spend his earnings on toys and gadgets and things that struck his fancy.  The stuff he brought home was not second-hand, garage sale-priced stuff.  It was usually the latest thing.  I rarely saw the need for these purchases or agreed to the justifications, but I practiced swallowing my opinions because, hey, it was his money.

  What do I really care about?  It’s not about stuff, really.  It’s about identity.  Who am I when my environment is being shaped by someone else?  I am the lady who loves baby pictures of her grown-up kids.  I am the lady with a collection of elephant-shaped things.  I am the lady with a few very sentimental pieces of jewelry.  I have a million stories illustrated by artifacts which are now hidden away.  I would like to tell my stories, display my pictures, showcase my collections and clear away the stuff that overpowers them.  Or at least blend them with my partner’s.  Equally.  Fortunately, equality is really important to Steve, and he loved putting together “our museum case”, and he loves it when I stop deferring and actually tell him how I feel.  So I told him.

   Here are some photos I took last Friday of the Dodge Antique store in Algoma, owned by “Tom”.

There’s a sausage press just like this one in the Schottler Summer Kitchen at Old World Wisconsin, where I work.

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New World Wisconsin

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I spent yesterday in the 21st century instead of the 19th, as I wasn’t working at Old World Wisconsin.  Here are some photos from my afternoon walk around the neighborhood. 

Actually, we do have peonies at OWW, too, but not this color.

Urban cottontail rabbits are much more brazen than the ones out in the country.

The weather is warm and breezy, and begging me to take a nap!  We had school tours for 4 solid hours today, meaning that I only stopped talking for 20 minutes during one rotation that only had 2 groups, and then for 30 minutes at lunch.   That nap is sounding like a real good idea!  

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And It’s Still a Mystery!

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Yesterday’s post featured some views of Aztalan State Park in Wisconsin.  You can read about it in the Wikipedia article here.  The pillars formed a stockade that enclosed an open area that contains a few pyramid-shaped, flat-topped mounds.  Excavations have produced some burial remains, but re-constructing the way of life of these Mississippian people is still largely guesswork.  It didn’t help that the area was sold for farming and plowed in 1838 after its initial discovery and survey.  In 1941, the stockade was re-constructed from post holes that were excavated, but there were gaps…were there always gaps?  No one knows, for sure.  So all of you who guessed that the area may have been used for keeping animals in or animals out or for fortification or for rituals or for farming…you may all be absolutely correct!  And you may all be incorrect.  Pre-history is great for people who like open-ended answers.  It’s humbling to those of us who tend toward perfectionism.  We can’t ever really know The Truth, but we can observe and imagine and learn about ourselves by the stories we tell about the world.  Change is all around us.  Our experience seems to be the truest thing…until the next experience comes along.   Maybe a good way to look at all of life is with a wink and a smile!

  

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It’s a Mystery

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Geoffrey Rush’s voice must read the title of this post. 

And here are the photo mysteries of the day: why are these posts sticking out of the ground?  What are they for?  Who put them there?  When?  I would love to get some sample conjectures.  I am fascinated, as a historic interpreter, at the way we take clues and put them into the context of a story.  So tell me the story of these…

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How Old is Old?

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I am trying to wrap my brain around history.  As an interpreter at Old World Wisconsin, I talk about St. Peter’s Church, the first Catholic chapel & cathedral in Milwaukee, which was built in 1839.  The liquid glass in the windows is rippled with age.  Kids who come by can’t believe that the pump organ isn’t hooked up to speakers and that the stops don’t produce drum patterns or other synthetic sound loops when I pull the knobs.  My blog friend, Stuart, is posting amazing photos of Gloucester Cathedral (you must pay a visit…click here to see his shots) built in 1350 or so.  Stone masonry and stained glass and soaring vaults predating the little immigrant church by 500 years – shows you that history isn’t about straight-line ‘progress’, it’s a complicated story with twists and turns and explosions and annihilation thrown in.   Then compare this photo of Mesa Verde in Colorado, a cliff dwelling inhabited somewhere between 600 and 1300 AD, most likely closer to 1200 AD. 

What we do with the raw materials at hand, the technology available and our cultural values is totally up to us.  So much is possible.  So much has always been possible.  What are we doing today?  How will our imprint appear in 500 years?   It’s a lot to think about.

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Draggin’ My Wagon

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I had the first truly busy workday at Old World Wisconsin today, full of great surprises.  The first was that a former co-worker showed up as a guest, with a motorcycle club from Willow Creek Church in Barrington.  It was wonderful to see her and to have a group of 40 visitors from my old stomping grounds.  What a contrast for them to be at St. Peter’s Church, though!  Imagine, leather clad moderns stepping into a Catholic Chapel that was built in 1839.  The church where they worship has 2 “sanctuaries” that hold some 13,000 people…balconies and upper balconies equipped with jumbo screens so that they can see the preacher or the lyrics of the worship song that a band is cranking out at how many volts?  Here I am seated at the pump organ in my bustle playing for a congregation of 20.  Quite a juxtaposition of growth.  What is the value of history, of retaining some artifact or memory of a time before?  Before growth, before technology, before the cultural shifts and changes that dominate our lives today?  Steve suggests that an important value in our culture now is convenience.  Willow Creek Church has a food court.  You can get a pizza or a coffee or a host of other fast foods without even leaving the building.  That’s convenient if you’re going from Worship to a class or meeting hosted there that same day.  Was convenience an important value in the 19th century?  I can bake 24 loaves of bread at one time in the bake oven at the Schottler farm.  I suppose that’s convenience making headway.  Also, I learned today that Sears Roebuck sold a Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencil with a nickel clasped eraser at the end in 1905.  You have your pencil lead and eraser on one tool, and you can order a box from the catalog and have it delivered to the train depot.   Was that convenient?  I suppose it was more convenient than whittling them by hand.

I like the feeling of being out chopping wood or trimming grass with a sickle around the homestead, and looking up to see the clouds or listen to a woodpecker.  I think it’s convenient to be right there on the land so that any time I drop what I’m doing, I feel connected to the whole earth.  Driving for a half hour away from the city to get to the country is not convenient. 

Tomorrow, I’m back at St. Peter’s for another day of the Church Bazaar, the Temperance Rally and all the Women’s Work and Reform activities.  Tonight, I am really tired!  I’m draggin’ my wagon, and I’m off to bed now. 

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Another Day Behind the Rhubarb Curtain

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One of my activities today was to string rhubarb up for drying.  Dried rhubarb will keep for a while, and then you can boil it down for rhubarb sauce and pie later.  So there are two strands of rhubarb hanging on the wall of the summer kitchen.  Maybe in a week or two we’ll have enough for one of those super 70s-like door curtains, you know, the kind they made out of love beads?  Do you suppose that’ll become a fashion trend?  Okay, maybe not.

I opened the door to the stairs where we store our flour and sugar in plastic containers and our newspaper and matches for lighting the fire.  Something smelled like death.  Sitting next to the pile of newspapers is a “tin cat” – a metal mousetrap.  I made a mental note to ask my supervisor to show me how to check it.  I built a fire in the woodstove and in the bake oven.  The smell was forgotten quickly as smoke billowed out the chimney.  After fetching water and setting up some rinsing basins, I stepped outside to sit down and enjoy the sunshine.  A black and white cat came ambling up the gravel path.  He sniffed at the doorway into the summer kitchen, mewed at me a few times, and moved on.  I wondered if he smelled a mouse.  When my lead came by after lunch, I mentioned my suspicion to her, and she showed me how to open the trap.  Sure enough, a dead mouse was inside.  She wrapped it in a plastic bag and disposed of it in the trash, so as not to spread any more poison into the food chain.  I apologized for asking her to perform such an unsavory task right after lunch, but she laughed it off with a comment about what she does to be paid the “really big bucks” at Old World Wisconsin. 

A school tour group came by in three installments.  I was surprised to see how many kids had brought phone cameras.  I was also surprised that some of the teen girls didn’t want to knead the bread dough.  What?  Too squishy?  Afraid to get your hands dirty?  Don’t want to put down the camera?  Whatever….

A homeschooling family of four arrived later, each with massive lenses and expensive camera equipment.  They were taking pictures for our annual photo contest…for the eighth year.  They had each won prizes in last years’ contest.  The teenaged boys enjoyed chatting about the merits of Nikon vs. those of Canon and making “Saskquatch” prints in the garden.  They snapped away as I opened the bake oven door and placed the 8 foot pile inside (the bread paddle).  I wished them good luck in the contest and mentioned other great photo opportunities I had taken, like the oxen and the zigzag fence. 

Cash prizes, folks!  Photo contest reception is September 7.  Come on by and take some pictures!  And say “Guten tag!” to me!

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Living Mystery

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I am reading a book called After the Fire: The Destruction of the Lancaster County Amish by Randy-Michael Testa.  Kirkus’ Review sums up the basics thus: “As a Harvard graduate student, former third-grade teacher at a Denver private school, and serious ethical thinker of Catholic persuasion and “morally tired” condition, Testa spent the summer of 1988 living with an Amish family in Lancaster County, where he conducted fieldwork for a Ph.D. thesis exploring a “community of faith”.”

Here is an excerpt that echoes all the discussions Steve & I have about living a life that embodies our values, a grounded life, a life of depth.

“…Dorothy Day once quoted from the Archbishop of Paris: ‘To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda or even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery; it means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.’

   “I stand barefooted thinking of Elam.  Earlier in the week, he and I trooped across the Franklin and Marshall College campus to the library to look for some maps of the county.  In lieu of classes, campus had been taken over for the summer.  Everywhere there were boys in soccer gear and coaches in black shorts and white and black striped shirts blowing whistles and clapping their hands and yelling, ‘Atta boy!  Good work!  Good WORK!’

   “Elam and I had just driven in from the farm.  I had been up since five working in the sweltering barn, where I am regularly stung in the eyes by sweat rolling off my head.  My white shirts are permanently stained yellow.  I have gained ten pounds and back muscles.  I sleep so soundly in the Stoltzfus house I sometimes awaken myself with my own snoring.  So for all that, hearing the word ‘work’ in teh context of a soccer camp seemed like complete insanity.

   “Elam turned to me and asked, ‘What is this?’

   ‘It’s a soccer camp,’ I said.  I felt my soul tense.

   ‘What is ‘soccer’? Elam asked blank-faced.

   ‘It’s a sport.  Like baseball.’ (I knew some Amish played baseball at family outings.) ‘These boys are here to learn how to play it better,’ I replied quickly.

   ‘But why?  It’s a game,’ Elam said, puzzled.

   ‘These boys have paid money to come here to learn how to play a sport better,’ I repeated tersely.

   ‘But why would they go to school to learn a sport?’ he persisted.

   ‘Because the outside world doesn’t have or value productive, meaningful work for its young men, so it teaches them that it’s important to know how to play a sport well.  This keeps them occupied until they go to college and THEN THEY PAY A LOT OF MONEY TO COME HERE AND ASK WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE!!!’

   “I practically turned on him- and my own world.  I shocked Elam with my vehemence.  I shocked myself as well.  I wondered what was happening to my view of the world.

   “Now, standing in Levi’s meadow in the middle of the night, suddenly I understand what has happened.  At this hour, in this stillness, among these people, life makes perfect sense.  The outside world does not.  I have become a witness.

   “I return to the upstairs bedroom as the blue mantel clock in Elam and Rachel’s room chimes three, and fall asleep to a cow lowing in the moonlight.”

To live in a way that embodies your deepest values, despite persecution, propaganda, and perspiration.  That seems like an honest life to me.  I hope I have the courage to live like that.

(photos taken at Old World Wisconsin, the living history museum where I work as a costumed interpreter)