I went out to camp yesterday. I met a troop of Juniors staying at Kirby House. They had just finished fishing & were setting out on a hike. They told me all about their fish, I told them about Mr Kirby having brought in trout & training them to swim up to him so he could tickle their chins. From there, It went into all kinds of tales about the Kirbys & the Oviatts. I kept thinking they'd want to move on with their hike, but they kept asking questions: Was Mr Kirby a nice person? Has anyone ever died in this house? Who slept upstairs? What's in that little door? And they loved the stories. They wanted to know right exactly where everything happened, and they wanted to go look for the date in the chimney.
In the course of this spontaneous history lesson in the middle of the path, I happened to say, "This old house is full of tricks and secrets." It was a throwaway line I did not even think about. But the little girls picked up on it. They kept asking, "Do you know any more of the tricks and secrets?" It kinda took on a life of it's own. I scraped up almost every trick and secret that I know about Kirby House & told them I was still searching for more clues. Then they liked the idea of searching for clues.
I decided to share that in my research I had been hoping to find some ghost legends, but I was disappointed. No ghosts to be had! No matter how hard I looked! They were extremely relieved!
They were so eager for more, but time was moving on. The last thing I told them was about the window from the dining room buffet that looks like a decoration, but actually slides open for passing out picnic food. One little girl brightened up and exclaimed, "It was a drive thru!" I've never thought of it that way, but she was right!
Here's what I think would be a good idea for both a service project and a fun thing for the kids. We can't afford fancy bronze markers (yet) that explain the history, and not every kid is going to read the history page of our website. But what if a troop made up just little wooden signs that talked about some of the more fascinating tidbits of history? They wouldn't have to be just about the Kirbys & the Oviatts. It could be all kinds of the events around in Richfield, and events that affected people living here.
PLUS they could tie in with environmental concepts: for example, one of the stories I got (but haven't posted yet) is about the ginseng hunters in the area, and why it is that ginsing is so hard to find now. There's lots of interesting plants that have legends that go along with them. Someone could either make a trail out of all this, or there can be randomly scattered signs wherever there's something interesting. I don't know. Just a thought.
Another recurring thought: It's often hard to find stories of ordinary women in history. But this Fanny Oviatt was such a strong person, I think we should sort of adopt her.
Lynn
