Memorial Day Events

There are two upcoming events on Memorial Day weekend that I wanted to get out there, since it is coming up quickly.  One is in Kansas City, and one in St. Louis.  I know, I know, there is a lot more to the state than just those two cities, and I promise, I will be including other areas--I have just been very negligent about blogging this year!

First, at Fort Osage, near Kansas City, there will be a War of 1812 bicentennial event.  But, you may say, 1812 was 20*1* years ago, not 200!  Well, the War of 1812 happened in 1813, 1814, and a wee bit of 1815 also (you know the song!), and this event will be focusing on the 1st Infantry evacuating Fort Osage in 1813. It runs both Saturday the 25th and Sunday the 26th.  There will be infantry and artillery demonstrations, a ladies tea and fashion show, a display on army swords in 1812, and a wreath laying in the Sibley cemetery (adjoining the fort) where soldiers from both Fort Osage and Fort Atkinson are buried.  

There are going to be two different presenters during the weekend:  

Richard Barbuto, deputy director of the Department of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, will be presenting "1812: Madison's Disastrous War" at 11:00 am on Saturday the 25th. If you are interested in reading more of Mr. Barbuto's work, he is the author of Niagara 1814: America Invades Canada (click on the title for link). 

Don Hickey, Ph.D. (professor at Wayne State College) will be speaking at 2:00 pm on Saturday on "Ten Things You Should Know About the War of 1812 in the West."  He is the author of Don't Give Up The Ship!  Myths of the War of 1812.  

You can find more information about the event at the Fort Osage Facebook page:  www.facebook.com/fortosage.

Also on Saturday the 25th of May, there will be an event commemorating the 1780 British Invasion of St. Louis.  On May 26th, 1780, during the only Revolutionary War battle to happen in Missouri, Indian allies of the British attack the small town of St. Louis, killing French residents and one American visitor.  This event will be at the Arch grounds, which is the site of the original village of St. Louis.  There will be cannon and musket firing demonstrations on the hour.  You can learn more about the attack (and its relation to strawberries!) from an old post on my blog about food history here.  

The official page for the Arch and Old Courthouse is here.  For some reason this event is not listed on the main events page, but I assure you, it will be taking place.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend everyone!!  

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

I thought maybe we would have a winter that wasn't, like last year, but now we are dipping down into the 20s and 30s, and they tell me the Snowstorm to End All Snowstorms is coming on Thursday.  I have always preferred having four seasons, so I am not sad to see some snow (especially because we are still in a drought!), but it does put a dent in visiting outdoor historic sites.

What's a history nerd to do?  How might I get my fix?  When PBS and Netflix documentaries just aren't doing it anymore, I do like to get out of the house and hit the local museums (aside from the museum I work at, which I see every day).  Some of them are closed in January (either because they don't have the funding to keep staff on during their slowest season, or because they are doing maintenance and repairs), but most of them are up and running again by February.  Hours can be limited though, so always be sure to check websites or call ahead of time.

One of my favorite local museums is usually open year-round, though they did close for a couple of weeks to  give themselves a little polishing and makeover!  The Arabia Steamboat Museum, located in the River Market in Kansas City, MO, is a personal favorite of mine, and somewhere I always take out of town guests.  One of the many fun things about this particular museum is that the displays are always changing.  Not in huge, obvious ways...as they clean and preserve more items from the steamboat, they add them here and there in the museum, and it is always fun to spot a new treasure.  This is truly a "working" museum, and often some of the conservators are on site, working on their latest project in the observation area.

The full story of the steamboat is on the site linked above, but here is my Reader's Digest version:

One of the most popular modes of transportation in the mid 19th century was the steamboat.  Many passengers heading out West to make a new life for themselves chose this method of travel, and the Missouri River was one of the main arteries.  However, the Missouri River was also notoriously difficult to navigate due to sharp turns, shallow areas, sandbars, and trees hidden underwater ("snags").  The Arabia was 3 years old and already well traveled when she caught one of these snags and went down in 1856.  No human lives were lost (though the mule bones always make me sad!), but most of the cargo was unrecoverable.  The story of how the boat was found and salvaged is just as interesting as the story of the boat itself, so be sure to watch the movie at the beginning of the tour!

I could stand and look at the beautiful household goods (they may have been on the frontier, but they weren't living sparsely!) and clothing all day, but don't fall into the same trap!  :)  Be sure to check out the storefront, and smell the perfume...and look at the steamboat menus.  I can't say calf head and beef heart are my personal favorites, but to each his own.

It is very easy to spend a whole day down in the River Market.  This area is part of the original French settlement, and later American settlement, that became Kansas City (don't worry, I'll get to that in a later post!), and there is still history to be found.  If you walk north on main street, you'll end up at the overlook on the Missouri River (much tamed since the steamboat days), and can then wander east along the Riverfront Heritage Trail through Richard L. Berkeley Riverfront Park (site of festivals during warmer months).  If you get there at the right time, you can see a train going over the ASB vertical lift bridge (talk about a contrast, from steamboats to 21st century trains!).  The City Market in the River Market is open every Saturday and Sunday year round, but there are also restaurants and stores open daily.   http://www.kcrivermarket.com/index.php/home

Twelfth Night Celebration, St. Louis

Wow, look at this...when I started this blog, I had intended to post at least every two weeks.  Well, it has been over a year since my last post!  I'm a horrible individual, and an even worse blogger. :)

Now that I have shared my self-abasement with you, we can move on to something fun...Twelfth Night!  I thought this would be an appropriate post for the current holiday season.  For most people in the modern US, Christmas Day is the focus of the holiday, and come December 26th, the shelves of the stores are cleared of all the Christmas tree shaped peanut butter cups, and we're ready to move on to spring. This is a recent (historically speaking) mindset, however--for centuries, the Christmas holiday encompassed twelve days, and the days with the biggest celebrations were New Years and Twelfth Night!  Twelfth Night marked the end of the holiday season and the beginning of the feast of the Epiphany (the day the three kings visited Jesus after his birth).  These twelve days of Christmas were celebrated in Europe by both Protestant and Catholic alike, with spectacular parties thrown by people of all classes to celebrate.  Wassail was a traditional English drink of the holiday, and King's Cake (galette des rois in France) was popular in many European countries.

These holiday traditions came with settlers to the New World, including to the area known as the Pays des Illinois or Upper Louisiana...a region that included the future city of St. Louis.  The French Catholic settlers along the Mississippi, who needed little excuse to have a party, celebrated New Year's Eve with La Guignolée.  This custom, which has been continually celebrated in Prairie du Rocher, IL (about an hour and twenty minutes SE of St. Louis) since 1722, was an occasion for men of the village to visit friends and relatives, sometimes in costume, feast, and (some believe) collect donations of food to be used in the upcoming Twelfth Night celebrations.  The tradition moved across the Mississippi River to Ste. Genevieve with the settlers, and has recently been revived in that town.  The translation of the original French begging song asks for a ridiculously huge piece of meat, and if that is not forthcoming, then the eldest daughter of the household...clearly the meat would be considered a safer bet in the hands of a pack of increasingly drunk men!  

Good evening master and mistress,
And all who live with you.
For the first day of the year,
You owe us La Guignolée. If you have nothing to give,
A chine of meat or so will do.
A chine of meat is not a big thing,
Only ninety feet long. Again, we don't ask for very much,
Only the oldest daughter of the house.
We will give her lots of good cheer,
And we will surely warm her feet. Now, we greet you,
And beg you to forgive us please.
If we have acted a little crazy,
We meant it in good fun. Another time we'll surely be careful
To know when we must come back here again.
Let us dance La Guignolée,
-- La Guignolée, La Guignolée!

The evening of January 5th  (to our ancestors Twelfth Night came before Twelfth Day, as holidays started at sunset the night before--i.e. Christmas began at sunset on the 24th, the evening of Christmas) was the night the gathered food would be served at parties, with the King's Cake taking center stage.  Dancing generally continued until the wee hours of the morning, and then the Christmas season was over.  

You can experience some of the music, dancing, clothing and food of 1773 St. Louis on January 5th, during the Twelfth Afternoon dance at the Old Courthouse.  Dennis Stroughmatt et L'Espirit Creole will be performing from 12-4, with dancing from 1-4, called by Deborah Hyland, Dance Mistress.   The event is free and open to the public.  Eighteenth century clothing is not required! 

Official event page for the Old Courthouse:  

http://www.nps.gov/jeff/planyourvisit/upcoming-events-and-programs.htm

If you still feel like cutting a rug after 4 pm, make a full day of it, and travel the hour and twenty minutes to the American Legion Hall in Prairie du Rocher, IL, for their Twelfth Night dance.  This dance does have a fee of $10.00.  

http://www.stegenherald.com/articles/2013/01/02/community_news/doc50e480dc7e7dc809091772.txt