The 1890's General Store

By Kathryn Albright


Rockford, Illinois is a twenty-minute drive through the country from my front door. One of my favorite places to visit there is Midway Village.

Photos by Jim Phillip

Before Rockford became known as Rockford, it was called Midway Village. Travelers would stop here on their trip between Chicago and Galena. (Galena is on the Mississippi River.)  Here the Rock River had a rocky bottom which made passage (fording) easier than in other areas. Hence the second name, and the one that stuck for the growing town, Rockford.

That is why Rockford calls its living history museum Midway Village. The small town is made up of several original buildings along with a few replicas that portray life in the 1890’s. There is law office, sheriff’s office, blacksmith, hotel, newspaper office, fire station, school and hospital in the town. A short walk away, there are several homes and two farms. Many fascinating events are hosted – the nation’s largest WWII reenactment, a WWI reenactment, school programs, weddings, and garden tours. The docents are a wealth of information about life in earlier times. In a recent tour of the general store, I learned of a few sayings that have lasted until our time.

For instance, I thought the phrase “The whole nine yards” had something to do with football, although why ten yards wouldn’t be better, I’m not sure … sigh. (Laugh if you must.) What it means is that a woman wants to purchase the entire bolt of fabric for sewing.
    

What about “Get down to brass tacks?” The docent pointed out a row of brass tacks that were placed every six inches on the counter’s edge near the cash register. They were used to measure fabric, ribbons, and string before cutting. You can barely see them in the picture above.

“Cash on the barrel-head.” The pickle barrel that is. Can you see the large pickle barrel in the picture above? Nothing was ever stored on the pickle barrel because it was opened so often to buy pickles. See how the lid has a flat area with a slight edge? Because of that edge, coins wouldn’t roll off.
 

 

 Most small town general stores doubled as the post office.

The docent is standing before the post office boxes.

Illinois is known as “The Prairie State.” When the first settlers arrived here from the east, they thought the land must not be any good for farming. They were used to forests that they had to cut down in order to farm the land. But here they saw grass, grass, and more grass which might be good for livestock…but crops? Any trees they saw hugged the rivers. I guess that is a warning about first impressions! Now the Midwest is known as the world’s “bread basket” because its soil is the richest in the world and crops grow exceedingly well.

 
Here I am standing before a patch of natural prairie in northern Illinois! Look at the height of that grass! I cannot imagine walking beside a wagon and trying to get through it. I also cannot imagine coming upon a snake!

What is your state “famous” for?

The countdown has started for my next book ~ Wedding at Rocking S Ranch. 

It releases soon ~ July 17th!    Follow the link for an excerpt!

You can pre-order it HERE! (And at a special, reduced pre-order rate!)

Have a safe, fun summer!

 

Museum Gift Shops—a guilty pleasure

I’m going out on a limb here and admitting a particular weakness for museum gift shops.  I’m among friends, right? And no one will think less of me.  Not long ago, my husband and I took a 2-day trip to Tombstone in southern Arizona. He wanted to see the famous sights (OK Corral, Birdcage Theatre, Boothill Graveyard), and as an author of western historicals, I’m always looking for research opportunities.

Who knew all that history occurred in an area that is only three blocks long and four blocks wide? We started at the courthouse museum and I could have spent the entire day there. Great exhibits and specimens with detailed descriptions. We saw such a thorough depiction of the shootout of the OK Corral (and a carefully researched rebuttal) that we didn’t feel the need to sit in the hot sun to watch the reenactment.

For me, the real treasures are the books in the gift shop. The ones that have a narrow focus and are usually written by people who live in that geographic area. Children’s books featuring desert animals from the region, recipe books using native plants, biographies of famous people involved with the locale. (I did carry around at least one of these three types before making my final decision.) Because I live in a small cabin with limited shelf space, I truly had to restrain my buying habits but couldn’t resist three titles. One highlighted Arizona mining towns, another included stories of frontier female doctors or nurses, and the last was a picture book about Tombstone. I never know when one tidbit of first-hand information will be the exact fact I need to make my historical stories as authentic as they can be. So many research books, such limited shelf space. Sigh.

Anyone else confess to a similar guilty pleasure?

My only book so far set in Arizona was part of the American Mail-Order Brides series titled Libbie: Bride of Arizona. Alone for the first time, tomboyish Libbie Van Eycken accepts a mail-order proposal and travels across country to find a place to call her own. Arizona rancher Dell Stirling needs a wife but didn’t count on the eccentric creature that brings chaos in her wake.

Exploring An Irish Emigrant Experience

From April 30 through May 9, 2014, I had the pleasure of vacationing with my husband in Ireland. Our son knew how much I’d always wanted to visit the land of my paternal ancestors and gifted us with a 35^th wedding anniversary trip. Armed with a guidebook each, we did enough research to know which areas of the country we wanted to explore and our hotels were booked accordingly. But what I always love about traveling is that not everything goes as planned. One of my favorite museums was in a city we hadn’t originally studied.

Because our hotel for nights 4&5 was in the south of County Wexford, we had the opportunity to visit The Dunbrody Irish Emigrant Experience in the city of New Ross. (The previous name was the Dunbrody Famine Ship, but obviously this one sounds more intriguing). As a bustling port, New Ross was also the site where the William Graves & Son company imported goods (timber, cotton, sugar) from North America in the mid-1840s. When the Potato Famine hit in 1845 (lasting until 1849), many lower class Irish could no longer pay the rents on their tenant farms. Many were given the ultimatum by their landlord: the poor house or passage to North America, with the landlord paying the approximate 3 pound/person fee.

The 458-ton ship was built to exact specifications to one from the fleet used by Graves & Son, and had 2 first-class cabins, the captain’s cabin, crew’s quarters and a steerage compartment. Before boarding the ship, we viewed displays that described the circumstances of the Potato Famine and listened to first-hand accounts of those who had traveled and then written to relatives back in Ireland. We saw the bunks below decks, noted the approximate 7’x7’ space (approximately twice the width of first-class bunk & same length) that often housed an entire family. On each bunk were the names of the occupants from one voyage made in March, 1849. The list showed often 4-7 people shared the space—a couple and their children, a widow with her 4 children ages 3 to 13, or a bunk with the names of 4 unrelated women. Passengers provided their own bedding, as well as utensils for eating and drinking. The shipping company supplied weekly to each adult 3-1/2 lbs of biscuit, 3-1/2 lbs of flour, oatmeal or rice, or a proportionate quantity of potatoes (5 lbs for every 1 lb of other items) issued no less that twice a week. Three quarts of water per day was allotted for each adult. (The assumption is smaller amounts were allotted for children, but that fact was never mentioned.)

Being a first-class passenger allowed you unfettered access to the deck and fresh air, weather permitting. As a steerage passenger, you were allowed above decks for a very short (1-2 hours) period per day. Walking through the small spaces (often having to duck our heads) in a tour group of about 15 people made me wonder how 200 people could have shared the small space. If any of you have traveled with young children on an airplane or in a car, you know how testy they can get a being confined. Imagine that behavior on a voyage that lasted up to six weeks and often in rough seas. Because of the physical state of undernourished people and the lack of adequate sanitation, many passengers contracted typhus and cholera and died. Mortality rates of 20% to an alarming 50% soon renamed the vessels to Coffin Ships.

What tugged on our heartstrings were presentations by two women taking on the roles of a steerage and a first-class passenger. Dressed in clothes appropriate to their positions, these women related their stories for why they were making the trip. The steerage passenger, Mrs. Doolan, jostled a baby in her arms as she talked (in her thick brogue) of her ailing husband whose efforts on their farm hadn’t produced marketable potatoes, and how when faced with debtors’ prison, they agreed to emigrate but she fretted because they had no connections, no job waiting, and only 40 schillings remaining. She worried about her husband’s health and having enough food for her 5 children.  Next a well-dressed wife of a shopkeeper, Mrs. Fairchild, stepped up and, with a haughty expression, shared that her family (husband and two kids) were traveling so her husband could help his brother manage a thriving store in Philadelphia. The dichotomy between the lifestyles was glaring and poignant. Especially when we learned that halfway through the voyage Mr. Doolan died and right before landing in New York, Mrs. Doolan also died so the 5 children arrived on foreign soil as orphans. I only hoped they were looked after by some of the other passengers but who knows?

Hearing these actors deliver the life histories of people who actually sailed looking for a new life made history come alive. As we were leaving, my husband spotted a printed manifest of the voyage depicted in the museum and noted that two men with the surname of “Carroll” were among the passengers. Further research is needed to determine if either of those men is a distant relative. The facts learned in that 90-minute tour will stay with me for a long time because the presentation was made personal.

Many of my stories involve characters who are first- or second-generation emigrants from Europe or the British isles. This museum presentation is always in the back of my mind as I develop those family histories. So far, only one of my titles (a contemporary) is set in Ireland but I now have so much research to write another.

Find my books here on my website or on Linda Carroll-Bradd’s Amazon page.