July 17, 2011 10:21 p.m.

For Calvert School’s 3rd grade course, Sweet Girl has been assigned a research report on the history and geography of her local community.  It turns out that there are many resources available to her for this report.  Our little country hamlet is certainly proud of its history!   There are several webpages with the history of our community, there is a local history museum, and our county library has some well written books about the history of our county.  I have to admit, researching for this project has been interesting.

First we printed out some 11 articles from the internet, and Sweet Girl read them all, highlighting the most important details.  Then we made a visit to our local history museum and spoke to the docent there.  She was happy to learn that Sweet Girl would be writing a report, and she asked for a copy of the completed project for displaying in the museum.  We learned about a time capsule that was placed underground in front of the museum in the year 2000 – to be opened in the year 2025! 

Throughout the visit I took several photos of the museum.  Since the visit, Sweet Girl has written part of the first draft (the history part) and this week she will continue on with the geography part of the report.  Calvert provided guidelines to assist her in creating an outline plan of the report.  I can’t believe that Sweet Girl is actually doing a research report. 

Here are the pictures of our visit to the history museum.

First, we set the scene.  This is the front entrance of the museum.

Sweet Girl is taking notes (drawing pictures) after viewing a Union Army uniform from the Civil War.  Don’t ask me why there is a Union Army uniform and not a Confederate Uniform.  That’s a mystery on me.

This was a display of old toys from past residents of our area.

A genuine Edison phonograph – the kind that used wax cylinders.  A far cry from the modern MP3 file.

Sweet Girl writing on a slate typical of the old school house days.

There used to be a train line going through town about 70+ years ago.  Here is the original sign from the depot.  It is hard to believe there was once a train here.

Admiring some artifacts of a former woman’s lifestyle. 

Imagine a washing machine like this in your home!

Thinking about bread making in the old days….

….. and ironing, too.

This museum is pretty “hands on”.  I cannot remember what Sweet Girl was doing here.

Farming tools from “back in the day”.  There on the left is a taxidermy sand hill crane.  We have plenty of them here (live ones, that is), even now, especially at this time of the year.

Sweet Girl was especially interested in the old telephones.  She thought dial phones were pretty neat.  The black one on the extreme bottom, and the beige one on the right, were just like the phones in my house while I was growing up.  Sweet Girl could hardly believe that.

We stayed in this museum until we “closed down the place”.  It was a nice outing and it is not often that only the two of us go somewhere together by ourselves.  Now this week, as we approach lesson 110 in Calvert’s 3rd Grade Course, we will finish up this assignment.  And yes, we will bring a copy to the museum, too.  Sweet Girl will be proud of that!