I had not heard that it had been allowed to decline!! I was heavily involved - each summer for many years - with the Clayville Folk Arts Guild when I was a child and teen in the 1970s. My mother was the primary re-enactor, I was given work picking up trash, but I made an absolute pest of myself with every interesting-to-me re-enactor there was: the apothecary, the blacksmith (who we often saw at other re-enactment events around Illinois and Indiana), a very old button-maker who cut mother of pearl buttons from clamshells on an original antique button-cutting machine, and on and on. To this day, if I had to reboot society from scratch with a small village, I could teach people how to make soap, process flax, cotton and wool (and I've got a good handle on the spinning and weaving too), perform basic blacksmithing operations (a bad shoulder prevents me from doing it myself now) shingle-making, processing cane into mollasses/sorgum, and so many other things I picked up as a kid - which were antiquated skills even then - I can't even list them all now. And given that I don't do re-enactment any more, well, I hope I never need to know or teach those things... but my guess is that our grandchildren will be screwed.
I can't get over how my mind goes to - the imagining of being in that Inn - as a Woman in any role and certainly in the day-to-day routines and upkeep... *the sounds, the smell, and the chronic CLEANING Necessary!* The boots would have drummed a thump and scuff across those wood floors, dragging in the dirt,mud, and manure, from the areas outside. The smoke from the fires a constant drift in the air, creating sit on the fabrics and walls, hazing the glass and mirrors. The mosquitos, flies, and dirt-dobbers a-buzz routinely. ...and these merely the side effects of "the work" required to carry out "a Day at the Inn" Hope this doesn't sour any Romantic Visions of the past - with the Reality of its experiences. We are a curious bunch - us humans, always reaching for the "Story-book Versions of Life" - though, *"we should never quit doing just that"* ...
Thank you
Thanks & hello from Plano, Illinois
I had not heard that it had been allowed to decline!! I was heavily involved - each summer for many years - with the Clayville Folk Arts Guild when I was a child and teen in the 1970s. My mother was the primary re-enactor, I was given work picking up trash, but I made an absolute pest of myself with every interesting-to-me re-enactor there was: the apothecary, the blacksmith (who we often saw at other re-enactment events around Illinois and Indiana), a very old button-maker who cut mother of pearl buttons from clamshells on an original antique button-cutting machine, and on and on. To this day, if I had to reboot society from scratch with a small village, I could teach people how to make soap, process flax, cotton and wool (and I've got a good handle on the spinning and weaving too), perform basic blacksmithing operations (a bad shoulder prevents me from doing it myself now) shingle-making, processing cane into mollasses/sorgum, and so many other things I picked up as a kid - which were antiquated skills even then - I can't even list them all now. And given that I don't do re-enactment any more, well, I hope I never need to know or teach those things... but my guess is that our grandchildren will be screwed.
Hope the tours open up in 2021!
I can't get over how my mind goes to - the imagining of being in that Inn - as a Woman in any role and certainly in the day-to-day routines and upkeep... *the sounds, the smell, and the chronic CLEANING Necessary!*
The boots would have drummed a thump and scuff across those wood floors, dragging in the dirt,mud, and manure, from the areas outside.
The smoke from the fires a constant drift in the air, creating sit on the fabrics and walls, hazing the glass and mirrors.
The mosquitos, flies, and dirt-dobbers a-buzz routinely.
...and these merely the side effects of "the work" required to carry out "a Day at the Inn"
Hope this doesn't sour any Romantic Visions of the past - with the Reality of its experiences.
We are a curious bunch - us humans, always reaching for the "Story-book Versions of Life" - though, *"we should never quit doing just that"* ...