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[September 17, 2012] 
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A big part of the festival is
the demonstration of crafts from days gone by. In the days
before electricity, cooking stoves and gas furnaces, settlers in
central Illinois had to figure out how to do things on their own.
Their daily chores included cooking sewing,
weaving and cutting firewood. Fences were built using split
logs, and children played with each other instead of toys.
One interesting point that came out in the
frontier demonstrations this year is how mothers engaged their
children in learning and chores.
When wool is spun into thread
or yarn, it has to be wound together for storage. In the first
photo below, the pioneer lady is explaining that mothers would
set the children to work winding the yarn. As they wound, they
were supposed to count the number of times they made a complete
rotation. In the end, kids got the work done and learned their
numbers at the same time.
Farther down in the album are two ladies
cutting wood with a crosscut saw. This was just one of several railsplitting events that took place on Saturday.
Pictures by Nila Smith |
