Historic Museum

While we were enjoying the Banana Museum and chatting with the helpful man there, he suggested another museum and said go up the road and turn right at Jack in the Box and it up the hill. We decided since that was on our way home so we would stop, see if they were open, and see how expensive it is.

As we got to the door it was opened and our friendly museum curator was there asking us if we wanted a tour. He was eager to give us a tour and it would take about an hour and a half. Okay, let's go. The house was built in 1908 and at that time the area was rural. The owner had a saw mill and was the mayor of the town.

We began the tour in the living room. The tour guide did a great job of involving the kids. I think J began a bit the tour feeling a bit like another old thing to tour but it didn't take long with the tour guide's encouragement that he was enjoying it.

Electricity had already come to the valley so the house had electricity when it was built. J pushed the button to call for the maid but she didn't come. (That happens to me at home as well.) I enjoyed seeing the red goblets -- my mom has some of those.

We then went to the kitchen area. It is interesting to see brand names that we still have on our shelves -- Morton Salt, Colman's Mustard and a few others.

The oven was coal. Again the tour guide engaged the kids. He allowed J to hold the iron and told him where it got its name. He added that he wasn't worried about the iron but rather about J's toes. He showed us something else and said it was used for breakfast and could we guess what it was used for. J won that -- it was used to cook bacon. You can see the tent like cooking utensil. There was an ice box here as well.

I took this picture for my mom. Don't those look familiar? They were smooth not ridged. The pieces I have are ridged. I have three bowls similar to these.  I asked if it was Watt Ware and he didn't know. I should have lifted up the pieces and checked. I don't think Watt Ware was 1908.

Then we saw the laundry room. One of the interesting things was to see three different vacuum cleaners from that time as well as a rug beater which probably did just as good of a job. We had a rug at the home this morning that needed to be shaken out. J wanted a rug beater and ended up using a stick. I like seeing how he transferred what he learned yesterday.

Our next stop was the office. There was a typewriter which gave us the meaning of the terms upper and lower case. See the upper case letters and the lower case letters. I think this makes our current keyboard look simple. You will notice that it is the qwerty keyboard.

We went upstairs and they had some bedrooms decorated as well as some exhibits that change. The bathroom had the original tile. Again J figured out the question -- how did the water get in the tub? -- there was no faucet at the top -- it was a bottom filling tub. There were some holders on the wall for a shower but the guess is those were added later. The tour guide told how they have looked through the Sears catalog from that time and didn't see any showers. He further said that the Sears catalog of that time is like Amazon today.

There was a room decorated as a children's room with lots of period toys. We were reminded that really the toys haven't changed much -- doll carriages, wooden blocks, a doll house, and a few other things.

I thought this looked like it was all set up for homeschooling.

We totally enjoyed our tour. I think having a tour guide that enjoyed history, engaged the children allowing them to touch things and didn't panic when they touched something helped us to experience a bit of life in 1908. You know it is a hit when the kids ask to go back.


Beth