Questers Visit the Museum

Historian John Zimkus, with Sally, Brenda and Cathy of The Questers

We are always on the look out for groups interested in historic preservation and were thrilled to run across an organization called The Questers.  The Questers are an International organization with over 900 chapters and 13,000 members living in the United States and Canada. Their mission is two fold. Locally the individual chapters support their members in their search for all kinds of antiques and collectibles.  At the same time the organization supports historic preservation with local grants to worthy causes. 

WCHS is interested in starting our own chapter of The Questers and invite any of you who are interested to contact us at the museum at 513-932-1817 or wchs@wchsmuseum.org.


Vicky, Sally, Brenda and Cathy on the steps of Harmon Hall.

The Questers Web Site





 

Of Tea and Herbs and Cucumber Water

Saturday afternoon, August 17, was just a perfect day for a garden tea. The house and the garden were lovely against the backdrop of a perfect summer day filled with sunshine and pleasantly warm dry air.  Twenty-eight guests and six staff members enjoyed a variety of delicious homemade  cookies and tea sandwiches, deviled eggs and scones all set out on the big dining room table at Glendower Historic Mansion.  Tea was served from the house's silver tea service and included traditional black tea and a special spiced peach tea. The peach tea was the most popular.

Out in the garden Mark Howard offered a very refreshing and delicious Cucumber Water to drink with jam sandwiches made with a sandwich press from Pampered Chef. Mark has promised to share the cucumber water recipe in the next post.

Herbal Bouquet

Everyone seemed to enjoy the herb garden talk. Guests learned about the various medicinal properties of herbs easily grown here in southern Ohio while they munched on Shaker Rosewater Cookies. Rosewater is an old fashioned flavoring which was often used in place of vanilla. The remaining Shaker community at Sabbathday Lake, Maine makes rose water which we sell in our museum gift shop.

 Several of the flowering herbs were used as garnish on the deviled eggs and the tea sandwiches. The tiny purple flowers of the anise hyssop graced the deviled eggs and open faced carrot tea sandwiches. Dill was the garnish for the open faced cucumber sandwiches.

Unfortunately none of the staff remembered to bring a camera, so I snapped this picture of a vase of herbs that were displayed at the herb talk.  Included are the bright blue flowers of borage, the purple blooms of anise hyssop, a common marigold, some late blooming hydrangeas and a sprig of butterfly bush. These medicinal herbs may not have a place in our medicine cabinets today but their lovely flowers are very attractive to both bees and butterflies making them well worth growing in any sunny garden.

Garden Tea at Glendower

Glendower has been very fortunate over the last several years to have the Warren County Master Gardeners working two days a week to beautify its once neglected garden.  To show them our appreciation and to give guests a chance to learn more about Glendower and its garden, we are hosting a proper British Garden Tea, next Saturday, August 17 from 3:00 pm to 5:00pm


The front portico and garden allee

in the garden (inside if it rains). The cost is $20 per person and includes the tour of the house, an herb lecture and tea. Glendower will not be open for regular tours during that time.

Guests will have the opportunity to meet the gardeners and learn about their work and their future plans for Glendower as they tour the grounds sipping tea and munching on scones, cucumber sandwiches and other tea tidbits. We promise to give your afternoon a nice lift without spoiling your supper.

Glendower tour guide and volunteer Mark Howard will be on hand to demonstrate how to make herbal tea and some ideas for setting an attractive tea table. Samples will be available to try.  Mark is a Pampered Chef rep and has graciously agreed to sponsor this part of the event.

One of the Master Gardeners' first projects was establishing an herb garden at Glendower. Here in August many of the plants are ready to harvest. The garden was originally planted as a Civil War era medicinal herb garden meant to care for the women and children left at home during that time. A few of the herbs also double as culinary herbs.

Executive Director Vicky Van Harlingen will give short 10 minute lectures on the herb garden every half hour beginning at 3:15.

Atlatl

The Warren County History Center has one of the finest collections of prehistoric Native American spear heads in any museum in the country. In the past we've referred to these as arrow heads when in fact our pre-historic peoples didn't have bows and arrows. Our "arrow heads" were actually spear points.  This week we took delivery on a reproduction of an atlatl - a device used to help throw a spear.

Museum Intern Nicolette Dahdah demonstrates the atlatl, a device used to help throw the spear.

Ohio's pre-historic native people lived a primitive existence compared to their European cousins living at the same time.  Most of the six simple machines such as the wheel, the pulley and the screw were unknown to the Native Americans.  They did however have the wedge and the lever, both of which are represented in the spear point (wedge) and atlatl (lever) which was used to help throw the spear farther and with more force. 



 

The end of the spear rests against a piece of bone in the atlatl.

Hold the spear in place against the atlatl with your fingers.
 

The atlatl helped the prehistoric hunters throw the spear farther and with more force, making it possible for them to take down dangerous animals from a distance.  The museum recently purchased a reproduction spear and atlatl from R.W. Stewart, Neo-lithic technician and owner of Archaic Arts.  The spear shaft is hollow on one end so that a shorter spear shaft with the spear attached can be inserted in the hollow end. That way, one long spear shaft and atlatl could throw multiple points - like having multiple bullets shot from one gun. See more information at www.arachicartifacts.com.

Bone Family Desks Arrives

A descendant of the Bone family of Warren County has sent us a desk that was used by her great grandfather when he worked here as an engineer.

The Bone family has a history of great inventions. One of their family members invented reinforced concrete making it possible for Lebanon to build the concrete bridge on South Broadway.


This desk was built around 1850 and has four drawers, two cubbies on either side and a hidden compartment.

 
 


In the picture above the desk shows a pretty cornice board across the top. The cornice is actually hinged and lifts up to show cubby holes.

The desk is on display in the Mote Gallery for now but will be moving into the surveyors office as its permanent home.

We thank Mrs. Betty Bone Schiess for her generosity. Mrs. Schiess is 90 years old and had the desk shipped to us from her home in New York.

Glendower Hosts Garden Tea Party