Field Trip

The fall weather has been beautiful around these parts, so the kids and I decided it was time for a field trip.  Where's our favorite place to go?....Silver Dollar City, of course.  This just happens to be one of our favorite times of year to go too because it's the National Harvest Festival and there are visiting craftsmen all over the park.  We spent a full day there and didn't begin to see everything there is to see.  But here's what we did do...

Of course we started the day at the bakery.

Having a giant cinnamon roll first thing in the morning helps you keep up your strength.

 We looked around quite a bit at the different demonstrating craftsmen and saw some amazing things.

This is our friend Dee's dad.  He and his wife make sorghum at the park.

 SDC has a whole section of downloadable lesson plans available on their website so we printed some and took them along on our outing.  One of the things we did was interview the master craftsman at Carrie's Candles.  Candlemaking is one thing that we enjoy doing so we were interested in learning how they do it at SDC and what candlemaking was like in the 1800's.  We learned that candles back then were made out of animal fat called tallow and were made more out of necessity than for any other reason. (We had guessed that scented candles weren't a big thing back in the 1800's.)  We dipped our own candles which is something I remember doing myself as a child when we visited SDC.

From there we headed over the Oak Trail Schoolhouse.

We sat at the desks and wrote on the slates.

We learned how to make a 5-pointed star with a few folds and one snip of the scissors.

We watched the big "Headin' West" production at the Opera House and spent some time at McHaffie's Homestead looking around and sitting on the front porch listening to the storyteller tell the true story of Birdle Mannon.  It was fascinating.  Birdle lived in a 2-room cabin in the Ozarks from 1916 until she died in 1999.  Her cabin was moved to SDC and now sits just behind the Homestead.

Well, perhaps the most exciting thing about the day was that the lines were short so everybody got to ride their favorite rollercoaster!

Ready for blast off!

A trip to Bonniebrook

Today was girl's day out.  Adrienne, Grandma and I headed out to visit a place nearby that we've wanted to visit for a long time now.  It's called Bonniebrook and you can read about it here.  It's the home of Rose O'Neill, who is probably best known as the creator of the Kewpie dolls.  You can read about Rose here.  Now around this area most everyone is familiar with the name Rose O'Neill and her famous Kewpies. Bonniebrook is where Rose's family lived when they moved to Missouri and settled in the Ozark hills.  But today we learned that there was much more to Rose O'Neill than simply the chubby, smiling little cherubs she created. 

We learned that in the late 1800's, at the age of 19, Rose headed to New York City to seek work as an illustrator.  Quite a bold move at that time.  Because of her talent, she was able to sell her illustrations to magazines such as Life and Harpers and was eventually hired as the first female staff artist at Puck Magazine (although she signed her illustrations with only her last name so readers would not know the artist was a woman).  Not only a gifted artist, Rose was an author and a staunch advocate for women's rights, especially women's right to vote.

In 1909 she created the Kewpies and they soon became a phenomenon.  For several decades, Kewpies were everywhere.  These chubby little cherubs were extremely popular and their smiling faces helped sell a variety of products over the years.  The success of the Kewpies made Rose a very wealthy woman, however, we learned that she did not hoard the money she earned but spent it quite freely to help support family, friends and fellow artists.  So much so, that when she died in 1944 at the age of 69, she had very little money left to show for the huge amount she'd made over her lifetime.  But the value of her life, we learned, was not to be measured in dollars.  She was an artist, sculptor, writer, advocate of women's suffrage, businesswoman, and philosopher.  She lived a very rich and full life.

We topped off our girl's day out with lunch at Ruby Lena's Tea Room.  It was SO yummy and check out that meringue on the piece of pie we're about to dig into!