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Village gives glimpse of life on the prairie

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By Christine Mastalio | Monday, July 31, 2006 | No comments posted

LONG GROVE, Iowa — Angie Wright Meyer can’t stop herself from looking for more light in most places inside the Dan Nagle Walnut Grove Pioneer Village.

Wright Meyer of Rock Island portrays an Iowa pioneer woman, and during Sunday’s Village Alive demonstrations, she used an old-fashioned spinning wheel to turn sheep’s wool into winter mittens.

“Usually I’m in one of the log cabins, and you want to flip on a light switch or turn on ceiling fans,” Wright Meyer said. “They had none of those things.”

In character, she told area children that she had to start making mittens in July, or her family would be cold in December.

At the turn of the 19th century, mittens could be purchased in stores. Iowans on the prairies, however, would have waited eight months for goods to arrive from the East and made most clothing themselves, she said.

Another village volunteer softened reeds in a tub of water to make hand-crafted baskets. Tracy Welch of Long Grove said a basket can take her anywhere from four to 12 hours to create.

“They didn’t have plastic bags and Rubbermaid,” she said.

That wasn’t the only thing 1890s pioneers in Walnut Grove didn’t have. “I enjoy hanging clothes on the clothesline, but I also have a washing machine,” Welch said. “And if I want clean clothes on a rainy day I can throw them in the dryer.”

Two centuries ago, Walnut Grove was a stagecoach stop, home to a blacksmith’s shop and a few scattered houses.

Restored as a historic site, Walnut Grove now has buildings representing life from the 1870s to the 1920s.

“Our kids today can’t imagine life without a computer,” Welch said. “Kids back then probably couldn’t imagine life without a horse. If you didn’t know what you didn’t have, it probably wouldn’t have been so awful.“

Donna Welty of Davenport said she could imagine living in the olden days.

“I don’t think I’d miss anything, except my makeup,” she said. “I’m a big fan of ‘Little House on the Prairie.’”

Her sons, Dante, 8, and Deion, 5, both said they would also live as pioneers. They would miss things like Xbox games and “SpongeBob SquarePants,” though.

Other children visiting the site were more skeptical about old-fashioned life.

“I would miss lots of things like electricity, electronics and games,” Raymond Marquez, 10, of Moline said. “I don’t like the clothes,” his cousin Alondra, 10, added.

Demonstrations in spinning, basket weaving, candle making and gun fighting occurred throughout the day.

“Back then they didn’t have television and movies to rely on,” Wright Meyer said. “You had to rely on each other for entertainment. I like the fact that family and friends were so important back then.”

The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2245 or newsroom@qctimes.com.