Christmas Open House at Postville Courthouse entertaining and informative

 

[December 11, 2023] 

Postville Courthouse celebrated the season with a Christmas Open House on Saturday afternoon. The courthouse on the site where Abraham Lincoln practiced law was decorated with Christmas trees, garland, and candlelit windows. Volunteers were available for tours, and a table of cookies and punch was set up on the first floor for snacks while enjoying the entertainment.

Seasonal entertainment was provided by Mike Anderson, the Dulcimer Guy, who played Christmas carols on his dulcimer and took requests for songs from the audience. Anderson also demonstrated a bones rhythm instrument and a mouth harp and offered historical interpretation during the Christmas performance. He explained that while movies may show pioneer dances and Christmas parties with fiddles, banjos, and guitars, these instruments would have been expensive and hard to come by on the prairie in those days.

During Abraham Lincoln’s time, the more likely instruments accompanying dances and parties would have been bones and a mouth harp.

The bones instruments were carved from actual animal bone and used for percussion. Anderson had carved his from a cow femur but noted that most “bones” used as instruments today were carved from wood.

In the 19th century, most young boys were gifted mouth harps which meant all the men of a town could play and would take turns playing mouth harp for a dance. Indeed, Abraham Lincoln himself played the mouth harp “fair poorly,” as he said about himself. Anderson said that Lincoln mostly played mouth harp to irritate his friends when they made fun of his gangliness.

Anderson, a retired elementary school teacher and folk artist, provides music and storytelling programs for children and adults for holidays and historical events. In fact, anyone who missed his performance at the Postville Courthouse can attend his free all-ages family show at Lincoln Public Library on Wednesday, December 13th from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. where he will appear as Hugo Kringle, Kris Kringle’s little brother.

[Stephanie Hall]