An Obsession with Old Books

I have an obsession with old books. An exchange I had with a couple visiting the museum this past December taught me that perhaps not everyone who is a lover of history also shares my strange interest in antiquated literature. The couple was looking at a 19th century book about the history of the exploration of Africa that once belonged to my supervisor's grandfather. As they were looking it over, I mentioned that, while I had only read the first 25 pages or so of the book, it was an interesting read. The woman looked at me and replied, "Not really." Wait, what?! How could someone who seemed so knowledgeable about history find an old history text so dull?

Perhaps my fascination comes from the nostalgia of utilizing the public and school libraries as a kid. The town library used to be housed in a section of a strip mall with a Tom Thumb gas station on one end, which I vaguely remember from when I was quite young. The town built a larger library just southwest of downtown when I was in middle school. The school library of my Catholic elementary school was located in an adjacent building which formerly housed the nuns who at one time ran the school. Library day was a fun day because we had numbered, colored painting sticks to help keep the place on the shelf while we looked for books, the card catalog was the best way to learn the Dewey Decimal System, and most of the books I read as I got older had that old book smell. An added bonus was that you got to see who in your class checked out the book before you under the old system. The only downside was that we had to go outside to get to the library, and we never used coats in the middle of winter to cross the "frozen tundra" as we called it. "Oh, it's twelve below zero outside? Psht, who needs to wear a jacket?" Minnesotans are tough (or stupid) like that. As a kid, I had an interest in Nancy Drew for the longest time while the rest of my class was reading either The Boxcar Children or The Babysitters Club (I read a few of those but never really got into them.), and I can distinctly remember listening to the school librarian read the book Redwall to my class, which then became my favorite book series in middle school.

Perchance my fascination comes from memories of sitting upstairs in my grandmother's farmhouse reading the old books that used to belong to the old country schoolhouse that my mother, aunts, and uncles attended as children. Since my grandfather was on the school board and the school sat on his property, I think he acquired quite a bit of the old texts when rural and town schools in the area were consolidated. I used to sit in that little room upstairs and read for hours from the antiquated school textbooks, Dick and Jane style readers, and Betsy-Tacy. There was not much room to sit on the floor, and when I got tired of the floor, sometimes, for a more comfortable place to sit, I would sit on the indoor toilet (lid on of course) that my grandfather had made for use instead of having to use the outhouse in the middle of the night.

Either way, I have a fondness for old books that perhaps only a few would understand. My imagination runs away with me each time I pick up an old book. Who was the previous owner? What did the book first look like when it was brand new? Was it given as a gift or was it a personal purchase? When and where was it read? It is something that certainly reminds me of the insignificance of my life as compared to the history of humanity, and it is a very humbling feeling.

Over the years I have purchased a few 19th century school textbooks for use in the one room schoolhouse at the museum. I received a few more in the mail towards the end of December (Thank you, eBay!), and I am always amused when books that I have purchased have an inscription on the first page. Sometimes it can be a few words, but sometimes it is just a name. I imagine that person writing in that book so many years ago, and it makes me wonder about him or her and what his or her life was like.

"Sigmund Drechsler" as found in Schillers Werke. Vierter Band., 1867

"Louis Rhoades 1874" as found in Wilson's Larger Speller, 1864.

"Della Buchanan's Book, bought Nov 8th A.D. 1881" as found in McGuffey's New Fourth Eclectic Reader, 1866.

"Charles Bunting. 1229 Ky. St. Quincy Ill. owner." as found in Deutsches Zweites Lesebuch Für amerikanishe
Schulen, 1886. The left-hand side is "Charles Bunting" written in the German style script of the time.

"Mary E. Young, Danville, Illinois, U.S.A. - Regards of Stm. [sp?] L. Dec. 1890." as found in Deutsches Drittes
Lesebuch Für amerikanishe Schulen, 1886. It was very common to abbreviate names in the 19th century.

When we finally buy a house, my husband and I are in agreement that we need a library of sorts, so I tend to not get rid of very many books that have been purchased over the years. The only downside of having so many books is finding a place to store them in the meantime. Oh, and moving them every time we find a new place to live. Those boxes are usually the heaviest. But one thing is for certain: my obsession with old books will certainly add some extra character to our future home library.

Palm Weaving

Palm Sunday always brings back childhood memories of watching my mother braiding palms taken home from church that day. I remember sitting near her so I could watch while she worked on this fascinating project. Sometimes it was a breeze for her to bend and manipulate the palms into the woven cone shape, but there were years in which the process of starting the weave escaped her memory, which led to some frustration on her part.

There is a universality that comes with being Roman Catholic, and around the world, the Catholic culture has familiarity to its congregants. At the end of my high school years, I spent a week doing service learning at the Red Lake Indian Reservation's Catholic mission. In the house of the religious sisters with whom we stayed, there were chalk markings above all of the door frames, put there to bless the house at the beginning of the year. This is a rather Catholic tradition, but whenever I see the markings elsewhere, it always brings me back to that house. After graduating high school, I spent about three weeks in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Despite my German language skills not being quite fluent enough to catch everything that was said in Mass, I was capable enough to pick up "Gott seid dank" (Thanks be to God) in the responses, among a few other phrases, because the Mass is the same in every language. My experiences in Germany, attending Mass once at a small chapel in the middle of a grove and once at the cathedral in Berlin, proved just how catholic (i.e. universal) the Roman church can be.

Keeping braided palms around the house is part of this Catholic culture, and I continue to practice it just as my parents and grandparents did. When I was younger, I tended to associate this tradition with yet another oddly rural thing my family still observed, but in reality it is not so much rural as it is a German and Polish Catholic tradition, which makes sense why my family did it. Sadly, it is starting to become a lost art. That is the thing with traditions; they are only continued if they are passed down to the next generation.

If palms are kept in the refrigerator after Palm Sunday, one will still be able to braid later in the week, but the longer one waits, the less malleable the palm fronds become. The tutorial here is for the square cone weave, the type of braid commonly found around my parents' and grandparents' homes when I was a child.

First things first, do not let cats eat the palms. Seriously, these are blessed. Also, they cannot digest them,
speaking from personal experience of cats getting into things they are not supposed to have.

Peel off the hard green edge of the palm fronds to have an easier time weaving.

For the cone weave, find four relatively similar sized palm fronds.

Secure the bottom ends somehow. I used tape this time; I have used a paper clip or a stapler other times.

Divide the palm fronds, pointing them in toward north, south, east, and west directions. Tip: my outside fronds
were my north and south palms.

Fold the south palm to the north. This will be the new north palm.

Fold the north palm to the south. This will be the new south palm.

Fold the east palm over the new north palm but under the new south palm.

Pull the east palm taught. This will be the new west palm.

Fold the west palm over the south palm but under the north palm. This will be the new east palm.

There should be a relatively loose weave starting to look something like this. Make sure to pull it taught
before continuing your braid.

Start with the east palm; fold it over to the west. Braid clockwise first.

Fold the south palm to the north.

Fold the west palm to the east.

To secure the weave, fold the north palm over the new east palm but under the new west palm.

Pull the weave taught. The first step of this braid is complete.

Start with the east palm again; fold it over to the west. Braid counterclockwise this time.

Fold the north palm to the south.

Fold the west palm to the east.

To secure the weave, fold the south palm over the new east palm but under the new west palm.

Pull the weave taught. The second step of the weave is complete.

Continue working clockwise then counterclockwise, always beginning with the east palm. After a few weaves,
the square cone shape will start to take form. 

When there is not much left to the palm fronds, stop the weave. Pull the palm fronds taught.

Gather the top ends together into a bunch.

Tie the loose ends off in a simple knot.

Ta da! The woven palm cone is complete. Place it anywhere around the home as a remembrance.

The easy thing about this weave is that it is really just repeating the same steps over again. The trickiest part is remembering how to start the weave by dividing the fronds into north, south, east, and west directions. The first folds can be difficult to hold together, but once the weave has a few secured braids completed, it is easy as pie. For other versions of palm weaving, there is a book published by the Franciscan Sisters, from near the area of Minnesota in which my father was raised. Palm Weaving by Sister Cecilia Schmitt, or a transcript of the book, is a good resource.

The Donkey

G. K. Chesterson

When fishes flew and forests walked

And figs grew upon thorn,

Some moment when the moon was blood

Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry

And ears like errant wings,

The devil's walking parody

On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,

Of ancient crooked will;

Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,

I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;

One far fierce hour and sweet:

There was a shout about my ears,

And palms before my feet.

My Tenacious Relationship With Farm Animals

Life has certainly been busy. Each fall the museum has to decide what to do with the farm animals over the winter. If you have ever been to Minnesota in the middle of January, you are well aware the weather can be rough on people. Animals dislike the cold as much as humans; they just complain about it a lot less.

The first summer at the museum Will and Fred had to share space with the sheep.

Our Guernsey cattle survived two winters, and they had a reality shock the first winter they stayed with us. They were my favorite animals on site, though. While quite large and intimidating (especially when one is loose in the yard and galloping towards you - yes, that happened to me), these two steers were pretty much equivalent to giant puppy-dogs. Will and Fred had quite the personalities. Will was usually less moody than Fred which made him more approachable, but Fred was usually jealous of all the attention Will received. I think Fred became more laid back as he got older. Named after Wilhem die Erste & Friedrich der Grosse these two boys honored their Prussian namesakes by responding to German commands. I think that is why I liked them so much. I could speak German to them.

Most of their days were spent laying in the grass, preferably in a sunny spot.

The Coolest Job in the World

I gave a tour today to a group of senior citizens. It was a family reunion apparently, and there were people from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, and Washington. Quite often this particular program is given to a group of students with no absolutely no recollection of life before the Internet. That can be an enjoyable time showing young people how different life used to be and how easy life is now compared to not too long ago. However, giving a tour to people who have actual memories of things on the tour is a whole different experience.

We started in the town hall of our little historical village, which according to a picture caption I saw recently, used to be a one room school. Every person in the group had attended a one room schoolhouse as a child. One gentleman mentioned how there were 11 kids in his school, while another said he was the only 5th grader in his school. Yet another gentleman talked about how there were five kids at the one room school when his family moved to a new town and a woman joked about how the school population doubled after his family started attending it.

I shared with the group that my mother's family attended a two room country school located on the edge of my grandfather's farm. I grew up listening to stories about what school was like for them. My uncle in particular was not the best of students. Their teacher always bent over at the waist to help a child at his or her desk, and she happened to be assisting the student sitting in front of my uncle one day after he sharpened his pencil to a very fine point. Being the focused student that he was, my uncle sat in his desk holding his pencil out just behind the teacher's derriere as she helped his classmate. When the teacher backed up, her backside ran right into the pencil. She told me uncle to get up, but he would not listen. After some frustration, she tried to pull him out of his seat. My uncle was wise enough to grab onto the desk and wrap his legs around the legs of his chair as she tried to force him out of his seat. The one problem the teacher did not consider was that if you tug at a child grasping for dear life onto a desk which is part of a row of desks attached to runner-boards, there is going to be some resistance. Well, she pulled on him hard enough that she tipped the whole row of kids over that day. I do not remember what happened to my uncle after the fact nor what happened when he arrived home from school that day, but I love that story. My group of senior citizens found it just as amusing.

Making jokes about using an outhouse in the middle of winter in the upper Midwest is something that appealed to this group because they lived it for so many years of their lives. At first I described it sarcastically as fond memories for them, but one of the gentlemen corrected me while laughing that there is never a fond memory about an outhouse. Considering my grandmother did not install indoor plumbing in her farmhouse until the mid 1990's, I can certainly agree, but I always cheated at grandma and grandpa's house and used the indoor toilet grandpa had rigged up so as to save myself the walk outside near the end of December.

The familiarity many had with the wood burning cook stoves manufactured in the 1880's in a few of the houses was unique to their generation. A gentleman talked about how the warming ovens were a perfect place to store a pair of mittens, especially wet ones, to warm. Another mentioned the hot water reservoir on the side of the stove in the house he grew up in. One of the ladies in the group talked about how handy it was to take water from the side of the stove on bath night. Using the wet sink, which would pump collected rain water from a cistern into the kitchen, for washing and bathing was not unfamiliar to this group. Bath night was on Saturdays in the nineteenth century just as it was for this group throughout their childhoods, and everyone shared the same bath water. The only thing that differed, it sounded like, was the bath order. In one family, the ladies bathed first. In the nineteenth century oftentimes, it went oldest to youngest. The baby went last, hence the phrase "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water".

The fact that this group could recognize the washing "machine" and the cider press in one of the houses showed they really lived in much of the history we were reliving on the tour. The ladies and gentlemen could tell of how their families' wringer washers were similar or different to that of the laundry items sitting before them. Or the fact that many recognized the antiquated irons displayed the deep memories the ladies had for sad irons with removable wooden handles as well as the early steam irons, used with kerosene in the nineteenth century but with gasoline in the twentieth century when these ladies were younger. As one lady described it, "Very dangerous!" The green Ball canning jars brought smiles of recognition, and the Singer sewing machine led to a few family stories. They played with stereoscopes as children. The root cellar was a place to joke about how when some of the men were in trouble as boys, they had to sit on the top step of the cellar as punishment. In the doctor's office at the end of town, a gentleman laughed when he saw the hearing device which looked identical to one he remembers his great-uncle using.

I joked during a bathroom break that someone should take over the rest of the tour. When it comes to historical knowledge taught at the museum, their hands on, lived through it experience tops anything I can ever read about. I made sure to thank them for sharing their stories with me because I can use it in my interpretation for future groups. Even though they grew up in the early to mid twentieth century, their childhoods resembled more of a nineteenth century life than a twenty-first century life.

There were a few things the group was less familiar with such as nineteenth century clothing styles, ladies' undergarments, the misconceptions about corsets, and the potent effects of late nineteenth century prescription medicine. I get to teach history, but I almost enjoy listening to the stories people have to tell more. Ask any senior citizen who grew up in the rural Midwest what year they got electricity and I guarantee they will have an answer for you. This group did, and being they grew up in Iowa, they even had electricity before both sets of my grandparents did. Ask someone from that generation about a party line and you will see the eyes light up. Now, party lines are a twentieth century thing, but we were reliving their childhoods as we walked to their vehicles at the end of the tour.

The aging generation has many memories to be shared, and if it is not written down, much of that becomes lost to history. I get to retell these memories on a regular basis, and I get to help a little bit of someone live on through a story. This is the reason why my job is the coolest job in the world.