PRAIRIE VILLAGE MUSEUM, RUGBY, N.DAKOTA

Rugby is a small town with two major distinctions. First, the Geographical Center of North America right on Highway 2, with good signage. And, the Prairie Village Museum with 30 buildings housing easily over a million artifacts, most of which are in beautiful shape.

Prairie Village is just that, a village of buildings moved here from various places in North Dakota to represent what life was like. Similar sites I’ve visited were never this big nor as complete. For instance, two schools, two churches, a telephone company office, cook shack, summer kitchen, log cabin, a bank and so on. Above is the Creamery and a Blacksmith’s building.

Our plan was to just peak into some of the buildings and be on our way. Before we began I told the docent I like to find things I’ve never seen before. She recommended the basket used to remove bodies to the funeral home. A painfully complete behind the scene funeral parlor with embalmers equipment and tools. Definitely a first.

Her second recommendation was what she called one of the most popular, Cliff Thompson, the tallest salesman in the world. His picture was at the entrance. I never did find the exhibit with his rings, watch shoes, belt and so on. But, I didn’t mind because I found many things I had never seen before.

You won’t see many buffalo coats with a diamond willow walking stick. There is no such tree as a diamond willow, but a diseased willow forms this diamond pattern and artists take advantage of a naturally occurring phenomena. Plenty of heavy fur coats,  beaver, wolf, fox, horsehide, buckskin, and raccoon.

A complete  cook shack.

A real get-out-of-town notice posted on the Sheriffs Office with a two cell jail, door.

Miniscule describes the Sheriff’s office, just like in those old western movies, only this one is the real thing. The stove pours heat into the two cells and keeps the Sheriff and his coffee warm.

A telephone company building resemble a one room house on the outside. And, as it turns out, telephone operators had the switchboard in their houses. The kitchen and a bedroom were in back.

Have you ever seen a phone like this one?

Or these. There is about 40 phones in this collection.

An early chiropractor’s office, his table, and a number of unidentifiable instruments. The completeness of these offices blew me away. A doctor’s office, dentist, nurses school, law offices, land office, a Norwegian House, and a German Family’s house. With, of course, artifacts and history of Russian Germans and Norwegian who immigrated to this area.

Schools have a lot in common, but, I had only heard of this bit of archaic punishment for students. It, too, is real. Reminded me of Mrs. Gleick at Soo Hill School.

The back part of the General Store reminded me of Robinettes General Store in Hardwood. Their stove and seating area didn’t have a checker board, a spittoon and ashtray, though. And, very common to small towns, the store owner was often the post master as in this one.

Whew!

Early grocery baskets. Never saw one like that before.

Amazingly complete, with barrel goods, boxed stuff, fabric, sundries,  flour in bags, it had just about everything through various layers of history.

Can’t say I ever saw wooden barrels like these at Robinettes.

The log cabin was very similar to the one I lived in, but smaller. One familiar item, a bucket with a dipper. Every day, the bucket had to be filled from the well. We all drank water from the same dipper as though it were a huge spoon. Mom dipped in her measuring cup to fill the coffee pot or to cook something. We had baths in front of the stove in a big wash tub, once a week. Sometimes, I’m glad we burned out and moved to the city.

The law office was also part of the lawyers home.

But, he had an indoor toilet and a little gas stove to heat water for their baths in the same room. I guess lawyers made a lot of money in those days, too.

He may have started small, but he eventually became a well know N. Dakota Judge.

There are two buildings filled with rolling stock. I would not have recognized this funny machine as a tractor. Each building held dozens of pieces and for anyone interested in old machinery, this is a must stop.

Plan to spend half a day at this amazing place. We spent a scant two hours. I’d rate it as one of the best museums I ever seen.

HOLIDAZE

Our annual family reunion is really a family and friends reunion. The first to arrive on July 4th was Wendy and Paul Lothrop from Southern California. Long time friends of my daughter Kristanne.  it was designed to be a surprise for her because she hadn’t seen them in a about two years and didn’t know they were coming.

Doug was cutting tile for one of three tables he rebuilt.

Kristanne and Austin arrived next. After having a chance to visit with Wendy and Paul, and since we were waaaay behind schedule with extremely hot weather, my inability to do very much, and a lot of things left undone for too long, Doug put Kris to work on the barbeque table he rebuilt, staining the wood trim and later two coats of Varathane.

Austin hung the flag, washed and tested all the squirt guns to make sure they worked, emptied the garbage and sorted recycling for a run to the dump before the big event on Saturday.

He only had to toss one gun.

On Friday, the young cousins arrived. Abby got sparkles in her hair and the boys sported newly painted mohawks for the occasion. Later Kristanne fixed a mohawk for Austin, too.

Sisters, Bev and Kathy. Bev is mother of the boys and Abby.

Kathy always brings something zany for the kids, this time some 4th of July sunglasses…

…and some weird teeth for herself. Boy, what Hollywood can do to make you look old.

Ted and Bev set up the first tent. The kids played on the trampoline and had squirt gun wars all day, while Wendy kept us all fed.

Doug put Ted to work patching tubes that went dead.

Virginia, Cedric, Theo and Owen arrived late on Friday, but the kids got some trampoline time in and we adults played a game called What’s Yours Like?

It is a guessing game, brings a lot of laughter, and the good thing, is you can snack and drink with the game without worrying about getting your cards or board wet or spilled on or greasy. More reunion stuff tomorrow. Have to visit the Chiropractor this morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

KENTUCKY HILL COUNTRY MUSEUM, ASHLAND

I loved this museum. It took you from mammoth teeth to the current crop of famous musicians that hail from Kentucky, and it was beautifully organized and easy to understand. The first surprise was a hand-operated elevator.

I always look for something I’ve never seen before, and this was it.

They did a wonderful job on Victorian clothing and habits. Above, some men’s hats. But the women’s clothing were spectacular. This museum had a tea where locals dressed in the old clothing and showed them off.

They could do this because the clothing is in such good shape.

A painted feather fan.

And, the language of fans. How repressed women were is astonishing.

I laughed out loud when I read that men took the time to make laws about hat pins. It shows their fear of women.

Another example. Men organized against women’s suffrage, but turned their back when it came time to take their pictures. It kind of reminds me when I was a journalist, I published that the local Rotary had refused to accept women as members. This was in the 1980’s. Rotary members castigated me at a public Merchants Association Meeting for making it public. Now, they love having hardworking women on their team.

There are beautiful quilts in this museum, many of them.

As always, a section on wars. The posters were not all the usual ones, and good copy. A small section on the Civil War and Korea, Vietnam and WWII.

They had the full story of Jean Thomas, this talented and courageous Kentucky woman who gained the trust of Kentucky hill people, hauled a piano into the deep woods and recorded and saved for posterity their wonderful music, unwritten and handed down from generation to generation. I saw a television special about her some years back.

They had a big section on Kentucky’s musicians that made it big, the most obvious, Billy Ray Cyrus who was born nearby and still maintains a house in Ashland. His daughter, by the way, is Hannah Montana.

And the Judds. Polly, second from left, is Naomi’ s mother, Wynona’s grandmother. She still lives here. The locals call her Polly.

For my interest, I chose to concentrate on women’s suffrage which really started in 1840 with Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone and Sojourner Truth.

Forgotten are the many women who followed the original heroines of the battle. From every state they marched.

Some of these women were beaten, jailed, and force-fed. In 1917 suffragette Jeannette Rank was the first women in congress.

The press vilified them as humorless old maids.

State by state they fought and made progress.

By the 1920’s, they were ripping off their corsets and demanding freedom to be something other than baby machines and servile wives.

They went from beautiful clothing like this, but, covered from neck to ankles…

To “seductive” clothing like this. OMIGOD! Later, women cut their hair and wore slacks. I still have a small rug my mom made that included the worn material from her first pair of slacks. This was such a hoot to look back on, without taking away the seriousness of the movement and how much we women owe to those early women who suffered and paved the way to freedom for us. It still astonishes me when I see it.

Later in the afternoon, I met Dr. Amy Litteral of Moxie Massage here in Ashland. She is also a chiropractor and I learned so much about body mechanics from her and had the most intense and therapeutic massage from her that I’ve ever had. I  can’t praise this woman enough.