Genesee Country Village

We were up early and broke camp at our Lake

Ontario site and headed southeast to Mumford,

NY.  Today we were visiting yet another living

history museum, the Genesee Country Village.

The Genesee Country Village shows 19th century

life in 3 different phases: 

Pioneers 1795-1830

Village Center 1830-1870

Turn of the Century 1880-1920

Pioneer life must have been tough in this 

harsh climate.

This was a time when the old saying of

"make it or make do" really applied.  In 

the early years of the pioneer settlers, they

had to provide their own food, make their 

shelters and make all of the things that they

would need to survive.  It wasn't just that 

you were making your own clothing, you 

were making the cloth to make your own

clothing.

As with most living history museums, there

was the old schoolhouse.

This museum has a camp for kids so they 

can come every day and experience life in

a different time.  Just thinking about how

different my childhood was compared to my 

children's childhood is quite startling.  Imagine

when you had to make your own bread and go

out to find the eggs to make a meal.  Actually,

I think my kids would have loved to have gone

to a camp like this ~ for a while at least.

Moving into the next time period of village life,

we see how far the community has come in a few

decades.  This house was an example of a Shaker

house.  The Shakers had roots in upstate NY.  The

Shakers were very industrious and we learned they

were the first to offer seeds by catalog.

In this kitchen they were making cheese.  They

were separating the curds and whey and straining

the cheese and molding and pressing it.

This house was the boyhood home of George

Eastmam (founder of Eastman Kodak).  This

is where the quilters hang out so of course I 

especially loved it.  Look at that beauty on the 

bed.

This made me want to get busy with 

my own designs.

This woman gave a lecture on hygiene in the

19th century.  It was quite different from the

easy, modern way of life we enjoy now.

Then it was on the the Turn of the Century

area of the village.  This is a beautiful octagonal

house.

I must confess the Victorian era furnishings

seemed so gloomy and overdone after the 

simplicity of the homes from earlier times.

We were lucky to have a beautiful day for 

our visit.  We stayed until closing so we could

see all the museum had to offer.  We skipped 

lunch so as not to waste time so after we exited

we found a shady tree and pulled out our camp

chairs and had a lovely lunch from our cooler

as we listened to the birds.  Then it was time to

pack up and find a forest to sleep in for the night.

I was thinking today of what got me started in

my love for these types of museums,  when I 

was three my family took a trip to Colonial

Willamsburg,  Even though I was very young, 

I still have some memories of that trip.  One of

them has nothing to do with history but with my

own history of embarrassing myself.  I probably

only came up to my Dad's knee, and I had a habit

of wrapping my arm around his calf and leaning on

him.  It seems I did this in one of the exhibits at

Williamsburg but with a bit of a problem ~ it wasn't

my Dad!  I'm still doing weird stuff like that as you 

can see here.  It wasn't just about museums though,

I loved going to other people's houses to see how they

lived and what they ate and how their family's life was

different from my family's life.  I guess I was an

ethnographer before I even knew what that meant.

And today, it still interests me.