Continuity

I'm sitting here, this winter-dark morning, my fingers tucking, plucking and finishing the last little bits on the new batch of rugs off my Newcomb, waiting for it to be light enough to go pack the van for our trip to the big Christmas Showcase Craft Show in Little Rock.

Fantasia's newest rug.

As I measure, price and tag these rugs that I've woven from the wool and mohair grown by the delightful sheep and goats that share our farm, I'm thinking about the bills that we need to cover with the proceeds from this show. We need to pay our homeowner's insurance for the year, and set aside enough to cover the taxes, not only the property taxes, but enough to cover the rest of Shawn's self-employment taxes. He's had a good year selling brooms, and I don't think his quarterly payments have kept up. Even with the 5 bales of hay that dear Wayne and Leesa brought us all the way from Alabama, we need to set aside more cash to cover feed for the critters. My car needs tires and an alignment and we sure could use a new mattress. These rugs are beautiful, as are Shawn's brooms and the shawls that I've already finished and packed, we should be fine.

My mind begins to wander in the warmth of the fire, and I think about how very similar these thoughts and activities are to those hill folk who came before us. How many of the early women who wove rag rugs on my Newcomb in the 1930's sat while finishing rugs and thought about how the money they earned from selling the rugs they had woven would cover the money that was due in their farm and home. How many generations of folks from the Ozarks have worked to gather and shape the bounty of this land and then take  the things they've made down to the big city to trade for the dollars needed for taxes, if nothing else.

The time frame is different - we are going to load our van this morning, and then (Good Lord willing, cross your fingers and knock on wood) we'll drive the winding, but paved, roads and be in Little Rock this afternoon. We've managed to mechanize and shorten the travel time, but the process is still the same.

Well, back to measuring and tagging. Wish us luck, and maybe we'll see you at Showcase.

Bridging the generations

I just spent the week working as a craft interpreter in an 1890's village. It's a much closer era than what I usually portray, so there were many people with memories of grandma and grandpa and how they lived. The 1890's are only 120 years distant, so people in their 80's right now still touch that era in their memories of their elders.

And I heard the most wonderful stories - expansions and elaborations of the published facts that I had to rely on from my study of the area and era. As I began to fit more into my role as an interpreter I realized that it was my job to act as a bridge. I needed to collect these stories and elaborations of life before electricity, motor cars and telephones - and bring that knowledge forward to the people of this age where water comes from pipes at the turn of a faucet and information floods our lives.

Much of what I heard filled in the gaps in the written knowledge and made what I knew seem workable. I knew that hogs were a very important staple of life here in the Ozarks and that butchering is done in the Fall, after it cools down. I knew that hogs ran loose and everybody had their own special ear notch to mark their hogs.
But this week I listened as a man reached back in his memory . He told me of being a child and going with the other young people to round up hogs. Everybody from the surrounding area would gather at one farm, he explained, and the kids would go out and beat the bushes and drive the wild hogs toward the farm yard. "There weren't many pigs that could escape us kids," he glowed with pride, even after all these decades.
They would pick about 6 hogs from that farm to butcher, turn the rest back out and everybody would go to work, killing, butchering, cutting meat, rendering lard, making cracklins and packaging it all up. The kids hauled wood and water and were kept busy wrapping meat and doing what ever chores the adults sent them on. He explained they would divide up the meat and after a few days of working and visiting, everyone would head home, with their share of the pork, sausage patties, lard, cracklins for cornbread and what ever else people brought to share.
He said that would last everybody a while. Then, when they started to run out of meat, word would go out and everybody would head to the next farm for another hog round-up.

Another gentleman told me about his grandparent's neighbors, who were too poor to have a summer kitchen outside, so during the summer, they just hauled their wood stove out into the front yard and cooked in the open. I wondered that they were rich enough to have a wood cook stove, but were seen as poor because they didn't build a summer kitchen.

I heard from one woman of her grandparent's challenges moving from the farm into the city of Memphis in the 1960's. One of the first things they did when they moved in was to go out back and dig and build an outhouse. "Grandpa said you eat in the house," she explained, "You don't --- in the house."

There were many other stories. I am going to try to write them all down. Perhaps they will only be quaint bits of history. But those little memories may bridge the knowledge gaps between self-sufficient yesterday and the unknowns of tomorrow.

The Louie, a modern mystery

There is very little that you can't google up any more. Research tasks that used to take weeks are now fulfilled at the click of a mouse. So it is surprising when you find something that you cannot find information about.

This summer we were lucky enough to purchase several lots of unique spinning wheels, looms and other fiber arts equipment. There were many beautiful antique pieces. Most of them I could research on the web and include all the information with the item. But one of the most beautiful, has also been one of the most elusive.

This spinning wheel is stamped on the bottom with the maker's name, Louie Golob, the date, 1986, the number, #62 and the maker's address.

I googled Louie Golob and found a nice article about his history and how he started making wheels. I sent a note to the address and got back a copy of the article that is on the web.

I am still trying to find more information on this wheel. I am getting quite fond of it. The wheel is a joy to spin on, I am currently spinning lace weight corridale/angora blended on it into a wonderful, fine, soft yarn. But I do want to know more about it, and it's maker. I am posting queries to several of the online groups I belong to.... do you have a Louie - or know anything about them?