Second Post of the Day
I said I would get back to all three vintage topics, but I have yet to share about the vintage clothes. The hold up? I am waiting to be able to access the photos.
The publicist for the Tippecanoe School Corporation came and photographed the seminars that Lisa, Leslie, Rick, and I taught at Lisa's school and she hasn't yet released the story. When she does, I should be able to share the photos that she took of us presenting to the kiddos.
Leslie and Rick gave a seminar of "A Day in the Life of a Child at Fort Ouiatenon" to give the students an idea of what their own lives would have looked like had they been living back then. (Feedback from the kiddos is that Rick's demonstration of a flint and steel was super cool!)
Lisa's seminar was very hands-on. She showed artifacts from not only the 18th century, but from thousands of years of Indiana's history - a stone ball, spear points and arrowheads, a fife, lantern,
and a King's rope! (Which I think is especially neat and we are lucky to have.)
To prevent theft, a red thread would be woven in with the hemp fibers in rope that was being made for royalty. That made the rope very identifiable as belonging to the King, and penalties for stealing a King's rope were severe.
I was at the Feast with my students years ago and we watched a rope maker making this particular King's rope. When he finished, he gave it to me as a gift. I passed it on to Lisa when I retired. Some day I hope to find that rope maker at the Feast and let him know that his gift is still being used to educate kiddos twenty odd years later!
As for me, my seminar was about teaching the students to speak a few French phrases (Fort Ouiatenon was a French outpost) and then about the clothing that was worn in the 18th century and how those clothes also communicated much about the person wearing them.
The kids guessed this necklace would have belonged to a priest or a "Jesus believer" as one boy phrased it. It's a French cross, also known as the Cross of Lorraine or even older, the Cross d'Anjou, a symbol that dates back to medieval times. (And there's fascinating story about how it had a resurgence in World War II as a symbol of Free France and a counter to the Nazi swasticka.)
The Ouiatenon cross, discovered when excavating the site of the fort, is also a Cross d'Anjou. Rick is a silversmith and received permission to replicate it in trade silver.
He gifted it to my mother (Leslie did the beadwork) and now I have it and wear it.
When I asked what a necklace with bear teeth or claws on it might communicate to others, they suggested that the person was displaying that he was brave. Another said it might be a warning to not mess with him because he had taken down a bear! (See why I love teaching so much? What a great answer!)
When talking about the clothing I'd brought to show them, I was asked who'd made it. I replied that I had as well as the clothing that I was wearing, and there was a brief silence.
Then, "You made all that??"
I replied again that I had, and there was another silence.
Finally a small voice from the back, "Wow."
Made me smile. But, later that day as I continued taking inventory, I felt a similar emotion when I counted and recorded all I'd made to take to this year's Feast:
15 men's shirts
6 chemises/shifts
6 bedgowns
4 shortgowns
4 cloaks
5 aprons
2 panniers/pocket hoops
5 bum rolls
7 pockets
9 pin pillows
3 hussifs (sewing cases)
146 blackened beeswax ornaments
14 natural beeswax ornaments
I honestly had no idea I'd made so many things until I finished inventorying everything yesterday.
Wow, indeed.
Wow, indeed!
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