Old World Saturday

Today we took our first trip to the historical sites that are part of our Christmas gift to ourselves of membership in the State Historical Society. There are about a dozen of these sites that we get into free and we hope to visit all of them over the course of the next few months. This being Wisconsin, and these being historical sites, most of them don't open until May because of the weather.

Old World Wisconsin, which Tom and I had both visited a few times in the past, is a large place near Eagle, Wisconsin where 60 historical structures have been relocated from around the state and reconstructed to create a small village surrounded by farms. The farms are representative of different national and ethnic groups that settled in the state during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In addition to lots of farm houses and buildings, there is the first Catholic church built in Milwaukee, a general store, shoe store, inn, school, town hall, a bicycle club and so on.

One of the German farms

A Finnish farm. They have an original sauna in an outbuilding.

One of the women at the Norwegian farm demonstrating spinning.

Raspberry School, a one-room schoolhouse

Tricycles at the Wheelmen's Club

All sorts of seasonal farming activities go on throughout the year, and today they were shearing sheep and demonstrating the process of carding, spinning and weaving. The tricycles in the bottom picture were designed for women in the days when their long dresses made it impossible for them to ride the high-wheeled bicycles. Tom and I got to ride the tricycles around the path, which sounds easier than it actually is. I also climbed up on one of those bicycles with the high front wheel. Fortunately it was well anchored in place and there were steps to get up on it. They really are high!

The site has undergone significant expansion since either of us had been there. They have trams that will take you around, but we decided to get the exercise and walk. It was a much longer and more strenuous walk than before, up and down steep hills, through woods and around small ponds. According to my Fitbit, we put in about five miles on foot while we were there. It was a beautiful day, Opening Day for them. But as happy as we were to have temperatures around 80 (26.7 C) and clear sunny skies, two hours walking and standing was tiring.