History comes alive during Landmark Park’s Spring Farm Day

The farm skills of an era gone by were on display during Landmark Park’s annual Spring Farm Day. Visitors were allowed the peel back the curtain of time to witness how a farm family lived in the 1850s.

Volunteers provided a multitude of demonstrations that would have applied to farm life in the 1850s to the early 1900s - the time period represented by the farmstead at the park.

Today, customers would think nothing of heading to the local hardware store or home improvement shop to pick up needed supplies for their fix-it projects. That would not have been the case on a mid-19th century farmstead. Those supplies would have been made by hand - often by the hands of a blacksmith.

Steve Lowery, of Level Plains, as he pumped the bellow to keep the fire that has heating his metal rods burning, provided a glimpse into what skills were needed by a blacksmith to keep a farmstead operational. Although it is just a hobby for him, it was a way of life for many Wiregrass farmers.

“I just enjoy the whole process,” said Lowery as he hammered out a nail to give to a young visitor at Saturday’s event. “I enjoy heating the metal and making something useful out of it.”

In an ironic twist, Lowery discovered he has an ancestor that was a blacksmith. He says that answers the question as to why he has wanted to take up the craft.

“This is something that I’ve wanted to do for 12 to 15 years,” Lowery said. “I finally got involved with it two years ago. Interestingly enough, my great-grandfather was a blacksmith. I found that out after I wanted to get involved in blacksmith. I’ve always enjoyed working with metal.”

Lowery credits his involvement with the Wiregrass Blacksmith Forge with teaching him a lot of the skills that he possesses. He has also learned a lot on his own.

“I started hammering just over two years ago,” said Lowery, a retired member of the U.S. Armed Forces and currently a civilian helicopter mechanic. “I have picked up a lot by watching other blacksmiths. I have also learned a lot from my own mistakes.”

Farmsteads of days gone by were pretty much self-sufficient. The families raised their own food - some to sell and some for their own uses.

Tom Boyle, a member of the Wiregrass Master Gardeners Association, tends to the gardens at Landmark Park. Saturday, he was joined by other Master Gardeners to demonstrate many of the planting skills.

“Where we’re standing is what is known as the kitchen garden,” Boyle said. “This is what the lady of the house planted to feed her family and to exchange with neighbors.”

As Boyle explained the importance of the garden, Sandie Mattingly and Harold Glover, also Master Gardeners, were planting tomato plants - with the aid of some industrious youngsters who wanted to take part in the educational process.

Keeping the family clothes clean and tidy was an all-day undertaking, as demonstrated by Dianne Cobb, a park docent from Ozark. A row of washing machines, water, lye soap and a clothesline were her domain. All of the washing devices in front of her had one thing in common - they all required manual labor.

Throughout her demonstration Ms. Cobb reminded the visitors in attendance at her demonstration of how labor-intensive the task was of doing the family laundry.

“It was all done by hand,” Ms. Cobb said. “The clothes also had to be made of good stuff to hold up under the washing process.”

As she moved from machine to machine, Ms. Cobb explained how some simple changes improved the cleaning method. However, those changes didn’t really make the job any easier for the lady of the house. They just improved the process of cleaning and also cut down on the wear and tear of the clothes.

In addition to the farmstead demonstrations, visitors to Landmark Park were also treated to the Old-Time Fiddlers Convention and Contest and the Alabama State Horse and Mule Plowing Contest.

Spring Farm Day is one of the major fund-raising events for Landmark Park. Saturday marked the start of the park’s annual membership drive. For more information about Landmark Park and becoming a park visitor, call 794-3452 or visit the park’s Web site at http://www.landmarkpark.com.