March 2011
Pioneer Cabin to
Re-Open in May Pioneer Log Cabin, which has been closed for the winter, will be opening again in May. We usually start the first Saturday afternoon in May, weather permitting. We also plan to open the Cabin on Thursday evenings to coincide with the Farmers Market, which is held in Wehmhoff Square. The Society is always looking for new Cabin docents. If you are interested in volunteering, please contact Jackie Heiligenthal, 262-661-4272. Training is free and the rewards are great!
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Outstanding
Christmas Program
Despite one of the worst weekends weather-wise during the winter of 2010-11, a good number of hardy souls attended the Society’s Christmas program at Veterans Terrace on Sunday, December 12, 2010, when Wisconsin author Rochelle Pennington presented the story of the wreck of Lake Michigan’s Christmas Tree Ship, the Rouse Simmons, in the "Great Storm of 1912." Ms. Pennington also told of the life of the ship’s captain, Herman Schuenemann, and the efforts of his family, after his death, to carry on the tradition of delivering holiday evergreens to the citizens of Chicago. Ms. Pennington illustrated her talk with many photographs and brought along several artifacts, including an axe and the trunk of one of the trees that had been salvaged from the sunken ship.
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Thank You, Rotary
Club The Burlington Rotary Club
presented a gift of $1,000 to the Historical Society on behalf of Don Vande
Sand, the Society’s vice president, who was honored by the Club with its
2011 Humanitarian Award. Vande Sand received the award for his work in
preserving the area’s history, helping others with historical and
genealogical research, and being the volunteer Museum curator.
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"This Is The Way We
Wash Our Clothes . . ." Contributed by Priscilla Crowley Remember what washday used to be like? Remember the intricacies of the wringer washing machine and having to hang everything out on the line to dry? It was a huge step above using a washtub and an old washboard but a far cry from the conveniences of today. When we first moved to Lyons, our little house didn’t have running water so, when wash day came around, water had to be hand pumped and then heated on the stove top – gallons and gallons of it. Later on, my parents invested in a water heater that had to be hand filled but would heat water up fairly quickly for things like dishes, baths, and laundry. Laundry day was always an adventure for the three of us kids – not so much for Mom. Of course, we always wanted to "help." After all, isn’t that what kids are for – to be helpful? Unfortunately, our definition of help and Mom’s definition of help seemed to come from two different dictionaries. Kids always had a different dictionary for the meaning of words than adults did. To us, "help with the laundry" meant splashing around in the rinse water, poking a stick at the clothes in the washing machine to make sure all the clothes were submerged in the wash water, and the best part of all – feeding the clothes through the wringer. That was just one of the best parts of laundry day. Mom was an extremely nervous person and I can’t tell you how many times we heard, "Get away from that wringer – do you want to get your arm stuck? Now go on, get out of here – you’re not helping. Do you want that wringer to tear your arm off? – how would you like that? – there you’d be with only one arm – how do you think you’re going to get along with one arm? Now get!!!" Well, we’d go slinking out into the yard for a little while but pretty soon we’d be right back there again, promising to never touch the wringer again, we just wanted to "help." No wonder she was exhausted at the end of the day. It wasn’t the laundry – it was us. By the time the laundry was washed, we were wet from head to toe. We were very enthusiastic about making sure the clothes were rinsed properly. Hanging the clothes on the line was another part of the adventure. We were too short to reach the clothesline but we could hand her stuff to hang on the line and we could hand her clothespins. Then when she went in the house we could play hide and seek in and around the clean clothes. That was great fun – the clothes smelled so good hanging out in the sunshine and fresh air. Unfortunately, sometimes we really got carried away and she would come outside to find little handprints on the clean sheets or, worse yet, clothes pulled off the line and laying on the ground. We were smart enough to evacuate the area once clothes hit the ground – we figured if weren’t around, we could always say one of the neighbor kids cut through the yard – she wouldn’t believe us but it was worth a shot. We were also great at folding clothes. Mom just loved it when we did that. Sometimes she sent us outside to take the clothes down if she was running late and needed to start supper. We weren’t quite tall enough to reach the clothesline so we had our own methods for getting the clothes off of the line. Socks were really tough because they didn’t hang down very far. For those, you had to take a running start and sort of leap up and grab them and hang on. If you were really good, you got the sock and clothespin in one leap. Of course, we had an issue with under-wear – we girls didn’t want to touch our brother’s underwear and he really didn’t want to touch ours. The exchanging of boy and girl cooties was a bad thing and we tried to avoid it whenever possible. By the time we took all the clothes down everything was in a jumble, we had clothespins mixed in with the clothes and our idea of folding was to cram as much as we could into the basket and then drag it towards the house screaming, "Mom we got the laundry." It just about broke our hearts when Mom and Dad invested in a clothes dryer. Laundry still got hung on the line on nice days but it was never the same. Because all the sheets had been washed, we now had another opportunity to be helpful. All the beds had to be re-made. We could certainly help with that. What should have taken a half hour at the most stretched into at least an hour. With all of the help Mom had, it took forever to put the beds back together again. Most of the time the pillow would only be partially stuffed into the case and blankets would be spread helter skelter any which way across the bed. Instead of the bedding being nice and smooth across the mattress, there were unexplained lumps and bumps everywhere. She would have to go behind us and straighten out and tuck in the sheets and then make sure we had actually put pillowcases on the pillows. Bed making just wasn’t bed making unless you could bounce up and down on the bed a few times. That was the best part of all – but it really didn’t have Mom’s wholehearted approval. Looking back, I realize that you could watch Mom slowly unravel as the day went on. By the time we had helped her with the wash, helped her take the clothes off the line, helped her fold the clothes, and then helped her re-make all the beds, you could see that her patience level was down to just about nothing. I’m sure she enjoyed laundry days much more when we were all in school. Dad always took care of emptying the wash machine and the rinse water
tub. The fun just never stopped on washday. By the time we "helped" him with
these chores we were wet from head to toe all over again and full of dirt
and mud besides. By the time Mom got us cleaned up, it was time for bed. I’m
sure that no one looked forward to bedtime on washday as much as Mom did. We
had a different outlook – as much fun as washday was, we were looking
forward even more eagerly to ironing day and grass-cutting day. Then we
could help both Mom and Dad. Life just didn’t get any better than this. |
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