Reliving the Past
Historic Emporia House is the Site for Re-enactments
By Bobbi Mlynar
Monday, October 8, 2007
The best way to improve on Sunday’s “A Step Back Into Time” at the Howe House might be to schedule the event monthly instead of annually.
The Lyon County Historical Society and museum staff and volunteers dressed in period costumes and set up tables and tents with exhibits to take the public back almost 150 years, to the time when stonemason Richard Howe built the two-story stone house facing what is now East Logan Avenue.
Built in 1867 and billed as a Welsh farmstead, the house is in near-original condition and is on the National Register of Historic Places, according to a brochure passed out on Sunday.
Volunteer Sue Blechl termed the event the “perfect ending” for a year of bicentennial events.
The brochure said that the five-room house — with no electricity, plumbing and central heating — provided adequate space during simpler times for three generations to live simultaneously.
The house features 18-inch limestone walls, a “generous” parlor fireplace, black walnut woodwork and native oak floors. Inside are the original furniture, china and clothing of the Howe family.
“The Howes were leaders in the Welsh community, and their home served as a gathering spot for their countrymen,” the brochure states.
There, for a few hours on Sunday, the public could tour the house and walk the grounds, where modern-day history buffs had set up activities that would have been going on when Emporia was founded.
Stepping back in time
David Edwards had his blacksmith forge fired up and was hammering and shaping glowing metal when the event began at noon.
Next to his station was the Howe barn, restored by Emporia Construction Co. with funds donated by Trusler Foundation.
A sleigh from the period, with its worn upholstery still intact, sat inside the barn while a bright red, 1880 Howe hand pump fire wagon once used by the Emporia Fire Department was parked outside.
The Tall Grass Express band performed in the front yard, behind a broad square of hardwood laid down for a clog-dance demonstration.
The society had a chuck wagon to provide meals to the public. A footed iron kettle, in which beans bubbled and gurgled, dangled from a tripod over glowing coals next to the wagon.
The Flint Hills Regional Quilt Guild featured Bernice Kelly and Charlene Hotzel of Emporia and Darlene Barr of Cottonwood Falls demonstrating the intricacies of piecing, batting and binding colorful quilts. The sole concession to modern-day quilting was Barr’s Singer Featherweight sewing machine.
Sue Sielert, Barb Say, Ann Sheller and Kathleen Tabor demonstrated carding, spinning, knitting and crocheting wool. Maranda Scheller, 8, who had been part of the sesquicentennial celebration demonstration at W.L. White Auditorium, used a table loom to weave the strands of fiber into a finished product. Mararnda had learned how to use a loom as part of a 4-H project.
Basket display
Donna Jeanneret wove baskets during the afternoon and displayed an assortment of other baskets she’d made that could have been used 150 years ago and continue in use today.
The baskets included a colorful, two-bulbed basket made for collecting eggs from the henhouse and a flatter, oval-shaped basket for potatoes. Other baskets of different sizes and shapes were used for specific purposes, such as going to the market.
Jeanneret teaches weaving to 4-H youths and others who want to learn the skill.
A few steps across the yard from the baskets, women gathered around a table to take turns churning butter from whole milk.
On the south side, Civil War re-enactors of the 8th Kansas Volunteer Infantry performed and talked about their work. They also drilled to a cadence marked by drummer Lane Ryno.
Arrowheads, tanning
At the back of the property, Kevin Hiebert and John Redden of Goessel had set up three tepees with a display of bows, arrows, powder horns and other necessities of Native Americans of the period.
Redden emptied a leather pouch of rocks and primitive tools onto the ground as he prepared to show the crowd how to make arrowheads in a process called “flint knapping.”
“He’s actually got the same tools that have been used for thousands of years in manufacturing points and knives,” Hiebert said of his partner.
A bison shoulder-blade, looking much like a dinner bell made of bone, hung from a tree. Leather would be dragged back and forth inside the bone to soften it as part of the tanning process.
“It’s all actual usable stuff; it’s not just for looks,” Hiebert said of the display.
A bow he had made, reinforced with rawhide and covered in prairie rattler skin, hung near a quiver full of arrows.
“One shot from that thing put a 1,000-pound buffalo down,” he said, talking of a hunt in which he had participated.
Nearby, Steve Ewing talked about his career as a trapper.
He’d made a hat for winter from a coyote pelt, and explained why beaver — a staple in trapping — had fallen from favor.
The beaver hair would have been soaked in water, then stripped until only “guard hairs” remained. Those were spun and made into hats. Silk hats eliminated the need for beaver hair.
Ewing struck steel against flint to ignite a “char” cloth, which he quickly wrapped in a ball of hair. Under normal circumstances, he would have needed to blow on the hair to encourage the fire to burn; on Sunday, winds made the chore easy, and he dropped the burning ball into a metal box to ensure it did not ignite the surrounding property.
Those interested in traveling as pioneers did could take a covered-wagon ride to the tepees and trapper areas at the back of the property.
Turkeys, goats, and other animals common to the time were part of a petting zoo. Homemade pies were offered for sale on the west side of the house.
A watermelon seed-spitting contest was held during the afternoon, and participants were encouraged to play games common to the period.