Sidney Museum and Arts Association Blog

April 9, 2012 – Well – we started Spring cleaning at the Log Cabin on Saturday.  And I have a new appreciation for how difficult keeping clean and tidy must have been when the cabin was built in 1914.  While there is plenty of water there was unfortunately no HOT water.  So buckets were found and filled and driven back and forth, filled and emptied, filled and emptied.   It is almost impossible to get anything really clean with cold water no matter how hard you try. 

We swept, and vacuumed, dusted and polished, moved all the furniture, took down the curtains so they could be taken away and washed.   Cleaned out the gutters, cleaned the windows inside and out. 

We got about half way before time and energy ran out and will have to go back to finish upstairs – where the water will not only have to be brought in but be brought up! 

But the downstairs sparkles and the windows shine in anticipation of the opening the first weekend in May. Be sure to mark your calendars for May 5 and 6 to come to the opening, see our bright and shiny space, and hear the news from 1912.  You can start reading about it in Letters to Anna in this quarter's newsletter.

March 15, 2012 — It's Spring, although it's snowing right now and I write this while I recover from a wonderful family wedding.    We've had a wedding or two at the Log Cabin Museum.  One manikin married a WW1 soldier (manikin) who succumbed to his exposure to mustard gas after he came home, which of course resulted in a manikin funeral.  Another time we announced the marriage of two of the manikins in the local paper and invited the general public to their reception at the Cabin.  We had quite a crowd and some even brought gifts!  I remember one guest whom we'd never seen before.  She wore a pink lace dress and black army boots.  She brought food and stayed all day and told each of the docents that she loved them when she left.  Several weeks later I was working at the Cabin and I got a phone call from her husband who'd accompanied her to the manikin wedding.  He asked for her and explained that she'd told him she was volunteering at the Log Cabin every Sunday.  I felt awful telling him that we hadn't seen her since the manikin wedding and she wasn't one of our volunteers.  We never heard from either of them again.

My Italian father hated west coast weddings; usually a quiet ceremony with cake and coffee in the church basement.  He grew up in New York where weddings were followed by lavish parties and if the guests went home hungry and/or sober the family of the bride had some explaining to do.

In the mid 60's I visited my grandparents in New York and was lucky enough to attend the wedding of a shirt-tail relative.   The couple were pretty much destitute; he was unemployed and she would always remain so and yet the family and the couple threw a huge affair.  One of the customs in those days (and maybe still) was for each man who danced with the bride  to pin cash to the bride's skirt.  Sounds kind of tacky now but is it really any different than today's custom of registering for gifts that are described right down to the last detail with no room for originality or sentimentality?

I remember working at the Sidney Gallery many years ago when a lovely lady came in carrying a box.  I asked her if I could help her and she said she was looking for a wedding present and wanted something that would fit in the box so she could mail it.

Practicality one…sentimentality zero.

Back to  that  New York wedding… the couple rented the hall and  hired the band without the money to pay for it.  They were depending on the “dance cash” received by the bride.  And guess what?  If they hadn't gotten enough cash from the guests it would have been the guests that were embarrassed, not the bride and groom.  I don't remember much of that wedding but I saw the groom and the dance hall manager shaking hands before the couple left to go back to her mother's apartment for their honeymoon so I guess she “danced up” enough money.

The manikins at the Log Cabin aren't planning a wedding right now but one never knows.

Sadie may just get up out of that bathtub and find herself a beau.  Or maybe that “scarlet woman”, Marsha Watson, will snag one of the Grumble brothers.  Their lives depend  wholly on the imagination of our volunteers, so as they used to say in an old song, “Anything Goes!”

P.S.  My dad would have loved his grand daughter's wedding.  

February 17, 2012 – Last evening ten volunteers met for dinner in front of the fireplace at the Log Cabin museum in Port Orchard.  Although dark and dreary outside, the room was filled with firelight and laughter, memories and manikins. Dried out holly branches left over from Christmas helped feed the fire, the tree was still standing in the corner and stockings were still hanging on the mantel as though the manikins could not quite give up the holiday season.

We met to discuss what the Orchard family manikins would be doing on May 5 when the cabin opens for the 2012 season and to try out a menu that will be used at a fund raising luncheon.

Inevitably at these dinners which we throw together three or four times a year, we start telling stories about the past, obviously spurred on by not only the wine but the surroundings. How can a room filled with antiques and manikins in period dress not cause the mind to wander back into “I remember when”.

Last night was no different and we started talking about 'The Days of a 49', a celebration held in downtown Port Orchard in the 1950's and meant to bring back the rollicking days of logging in the South Kitsap area.

My memories of the festivities are extremely limited as my parents made a point of staying out of town during the celebration for reasons I didn't understand then and fully understand now.

As luck would have it, when I was 10 years old, our family of four ended up in Port Orchard on the way back from a camping trip, right in the middle of the 'Days of 49'.  My brother and I pleaded and begged and promised years of chores done without whining if we could just walk around town with mom and dad. We wanted to watch the people, listen to the music and find out what we were missing. I urged the family past the jail cell erected in the middle of town to hold all the men who refused to take part in the beard growing contest, fearing the 3-day growth on my normally clean-shaven father would catch the attention of the “sheriff” and he'd be hauled away forever.

As dad and my brother walked past all the taverns that faced Bay street in those days, toward the east end of town to look for an ice cream cone, mom and I walked toward the waterfront to look at the carnival and donkey rides and things more appropriate to a young lady and her mother.

Mom was surprised to see small trailers (no Winamucca's in those days) lined up against the waterfront and even more surprised at the people who were sitting in front of the trailers, smoking and passing around bottles. I knew nothing of the nomadic life of carnival people or of shared bottles in paper bags. I remember my mouth dropping open when a red-haired woman wearing nothing but a slip stepped out of a trailer and took a drink from a bottle-wrapped bag handed to her as she teetered down the three tiny front steps on high heels that I thought were beautiful.  She seemed to have a difficult time walking to the front door of the trailer parked next to the one she'd exited and slumped against the door frame while pounding on the screen door, yelling something about “I ain't waiting all day.”

I pointed to her as I told my mom that, “That lady is outside in her slip!”

Mom grabbed my shoulders, spinning me around so fast its a wonder my shoes didn't screw themselves into the gravel. We rushed back to the car and she wouldn't answer my questions about why a lady would walk outside in her underwear and could I wear shoes like that someday.

That was my one and only glimpse of Port Orchard during the 'Days of 49' and when I told dad and my brother about what I'd seen while they were looking for ice cream mom and dad just looked at each other and shook their heads. I don't think my brother even believed me. 

From Mary Peterson — 2011 is officially over and thinking about the past year stirs up a lot of memories about our Log Cabin  museum.

For instance, Tom Lavender, a gentleman who walked in one day and asked if he could help.  We put him to work cataloging books and enjoyed his stories, his sense of humor and his dedication.  It was lovely to hear from a friend of his that he enjoyed his time at the Log Cabin.  We miss you, Tom.

The Grumble brothers (my husband Alan and Virgil Reames) who can and do fix anything,  constantly complaining about each other and the world in general while they're working and keep the Log Cabin and the grounds in great condition.  

To our volunteers, some who have been helping around the Log Cabin for over thirty years, as well as the “newbies” who do everything from sweeping the floors to dressing the manikins; we couldn't do it without you.  Speaking of volunteers, I am constantly amazed at the ideas they come up with to give life to the Orchard family, the manikins who live at the cabin.  From old and bizarre medical remedies to sending one of the Grumble brothers on a trip on the Titanic, we're able to introduce our visitors to life in Port Orchard as it was a hundred years ago.

We opened our door to hundreds of children and adults in 2011.   One adult in each group usually walks up to one of the artifacts, smiles and says, “I remember when we had one of these…” then goes on to tell us something we didn't know about the artifact, letting us in on secrets we can share with the next group.
The children are always amazed at all the household articles that worked without a remote and cranking up the Victrola and setting the needle down just right on a thick old 78 RPM record is a special treat as the children s' mouths drop open when they hear the scratchy music and find out that to make it louder all you have to do is open the cabinet doors.   They look at me like I'm as old as a dinosaur when I tell them that my family had a Victrola when I was a kid and the parents wince when I add that my dad lugged it out to the burn pile when we got a “real” record player.  I remember him saying, “No one is going to want one of these things anymore.”

So. . .what's next for the Log Cabin?  We're raising money for a new cedar-shingled roof and gathering information to submit for National Historic Designation as the cabin turns one hundred years old very soon.

And the Orchard family?  Will the Grumble brother survive the Titanic?  Will Grandma Orchard survive another year?  Will Sadie stay in the bathtub?   
“Stay tuned” as they said when I was a kid.  The best is yet to come.
 

The Log Cabin Museum closes for the season, accept by appointment, at the end of September.  So what goes on in there now?  Do the manikins go into “sleep” mode?  Do the Grumble brothers fire up their still?   Does “Sidney” the house mouse call up his friends and party?

 “No”, “No” and “Probably”. 

The manikins have to be dressed in their Christmas finery which means we yank off their hands and arms, unscrew their torsos from their legs and with a lot of laughter and often tasteless  jokes they are re-arranged, re-dressed and screwed back together.  This year Grandma Orchard will be upstairs working on a Victorian hair-weaving project, Lewis will be bringing in wood for the fire, Amelia will be making a ginger bread house with  Charles and Emily, Teddy will be decorating the tree and the Grumble brothers will be hidden out of site for the duration of the holidays.

Our big Christmas event will take place on the first two weekends in December from 11:00 AM until 3:00PM.  During those hours hundreds of little ones, teenagers, adults and a few pets will be greeted by the log cabin elves and wait their turn to sit on Santa's lap. 

The teenagers usually have to be talked into taking part but they always leave the cabin laughing.

One girl of about fourteen burst into tears after talking to Santa and told us in a halting voice that this was the first time she'd ever talked to him.  Another family was  walking by the cabin and we dragged them in, sat them down and took their picture.  I mailed the picture to them the following day and several months later we received a heart-breaking note thanking us for insisting that they come in to have the whole family in the picture.  Their son had gone to Iraq soon after Christmas and it was the last picture they were to have of him.

Is it worth it to devote  the first two weekends of December to the Log Cabin Museum?

You bet it is.

I hope all of you reading this have a wonderful holiday season and for no reason at all give the person next to you a big hug.

The cabin, built from fat logs dragged up unpaved Sidney Avenue in 1914, still sits on its original lot.  There must have been plenty of available property in Port Orchard ninety-seven years ago so why did the Bartows build their home on the edge of a deep ravine, a ravine that begins immediately outside the back of the house?  I don't know and no one I've spoken to knows.  The ravine is breath taking, with huge fir trees, salal and sword ferns sweeping almost straight down to the creek but anyone who walked behind the house in the dark was taking their chances since one miss step would send you in a slide that probably wouldn't stop until you either reached the creek or if you were lucky, got hung up to dangle somewhere in the bushes.  But. . .the cabin has remained on its original spot of ground through storms and earthquakes and La Nina rainfall and the carefully monitored plum-line hanging in the corner of the living room moves only a little each year, so I guess the Bartows knew what they were doing.

The cabin plays host to the fictional "Orchard" family and visitors often stop by to see what each member of the family is up to.  They can usually count on finding Mother Orchard and Amelia sewing or cooking, young Charles helping with chores, younger Teddy in some kind of trouble and of course Sadie, soaking in the bathtub upstairs while she dreams of dances and dresses and beaus.  The head of the household, Lewis, finds plenty to do after working in the Port Orchard mill and the infamous Grumble brothers lend a hand in keeping the cabin standing.

This summer the Orchards are getting ready for the annual 1908 Fundraising Ball for Widows and Orphans and the kitchen and living room are filled with fabric and flowers and lace piled up at the old Singer sewing machine.  Teddy has put down his toy rifle for a minute so he can try on his mother's favorite hat and Charles stares out of the window upstairs waiting for his father to quit discussing the merits of the latest pharmaceutical truss with one of the neighbors.

2011 has brought visitors from as far away as Australia and Singapore, the entire second grade from South Colby Elementary School and a young man I will never forget who was badly injured in Afghanistan.  He came into the cabin, sat down and talked to me for over an hour.  He'd received a terrible head injury which was evident both physically and mentally and seemed to need a sounding board in the form of "an older lady who has time to listen to me talk."  We sat for another half hour in silence before he struggled out of the old arm chair and left me to wonder about the lives and fortunes of all the men who had taken a moment to rest in that chair before him.

And that is what history is all about.

Mary

At the Log Cabin Museum at 416 Sidney Avenue in Port Orchard we'll be focusing on some minor repairs this year in preparation for seeking National Historic Designation.  We're also going to try to repair the player piano, originally housed in the Sidney Hotel, before the fire.  The Cabin was built in 1914 and sits on the original site.  Because of the roses that are planted in front of the cabin and still thrive, the cabin was referred to as 'The Rose Cabin' when first built.  When we open in May the mannikins at the Log Cabin, the fictional Orchard family, will be portraying life typical of Port Orchard in 1911.  We will be open  May through September  on Saturdays from 11-4 and Sundays from 1-4.  We are always open by appointment.  Those interested can call Mary Peterson, our Director of Museums, at 360-769-9551. The Log Cabin is a child friendly museum where many of the artifacts can be handled.  There is no charge for the Log Cabin.  Donations are accepted.