Little Egypt Heritage Articles Stories of Southern Illinois (c) Bill Oliver 13 July 2003 Vol 2 Issue: #26 ISBN: pending Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen of Little Egypt, >From the section on Social, A History of Johnson County, by Mrs. P. T. Chapman, January 1925, page 82: "One great social with our people, perhaps not with the very first settlers, but a custom begun early and followed religiously until a few years ago, was the free barbecue. The cattle, sheep and hogs were furnished by the neighbors. These animals were dressed the day before. On the morning of the day of the feast, men versed in the art, began their work long before the dawn of day. The animals were roasted whole or in halves over a hot fire which was built in a vat or hole dug in the ground. The animals were turned and basted with a dressing until by noon they were a delicious viand fit for a king. One very famous barbecue was held at Simpson, 1892. There were said to have been 10,000 people present. Long tables had been spread, under the heavy leafed branches in the grove, with bread, salad, pickles, cakes, pies, coffee and all the necessities for a good dinner, including an abundance of barbecued meat. "The most wonderful part of the story is that, this was all free. After these dinners and sometimes before the crowd was entertained by a good speaker, a minister, a candidate or some friend of the candidate. Everybody visited with everybody else, meeting those who lived at a distance and making new friends. On the whole these were pleasant days." Well, the Largest Picnic in the World was yesterday. It was sponsored by the Toledo [Ohio] MetroParks. Yours truly was there, as a volunteer, dishing out stuff that makes for picnics, greeting visitors, directing traffic, serving some seniors and even holding an impromptu nature lesson about a lunar moth which appeared on the ground. Imagine, if you will, twenty-five hundred [2500] pounds of hamburger and ten thousand [10,000] hot dogs served at one picnic. The picnic was so large that it took place at four [out of nine] different MetroParks in the Toledo, Ohio area. Due to high water in the Maumee River, some parks were closed, and the festivities shifted to other parks in the system. The park officials envisioned, to celebrate the system's 75th Anniversary, the biggest, the largest, picnic ever. The [Toledo] Blade article is on line at: <http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030713/NEWS08/107130109> Two grands are visiting and earlier this week they "allowed" us grandparents to take them to the Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont, Ohio. We have visited the center often, toured the home each time. The most fascinating thing is that we have learned something new each time we visited. One of the guides, Sandy Wagner, had only "us" for her tour and since we had been "frequent" visitors emphasized more of the personal family interrelationships and activities, rather than the furnishings in the home. The Ayes' were an active family, with the parents working along side their hired help in all the domestic activities involved with running a farm. For "Mother Lucy" this involved helping to prepare the meals, even when there were guests to entertain. She also was a seamstress, in that the President said in his diary/journal that he always wore a "home-made" shirt while President. Other regular activities of the President were to walk six miles a day; answer an average of five letters a day; help with things like trimming the trees and reading, reading, reading. Our guide said that the President boasted of not only maintaining a very large library, but having read every single book in it. My guess is that the President did much of his reading while on his daily six mile walks. So we talked with our guide about our reading habits as well as other activities. We gleaned that she, in addition, to reading as many as seven books a week, beyond her household ‘duties' she was a quilter. So was my grandmother. Grandmother wanted to make and give a quilt to each of her grandchildren and great grandchildren. She would always inspect the stitching of any quilt and would comment if it was hand or machine stitched and her value [opinion] of the stitching. Our guide does both; hand and machine stitching. Speaking of quilts; I'm beginning to think that next to genealogy, quilting is the next largest avocation in the nation. There are displays of quilts everywhere one goes these days ... not just county fairs. There have been several large shows in Little Egypt recently, and for six weeks, beginning August 1st, there will be a display at the Hayes Presidential Center; quilts from forty- nine of the USA's "top" quilters depicting themes from patriotic to spiritual. "A quilt lives in the maker", Grandma would say. I suppose that she meant that you could tell a lot about the maker by the design and stitching of a quilt. It is too bad, that often, you cannot identify the maker with a name and maybe a biography. According to Grandma, folks would gather pieces for the top of a quilt and then would invite their neighbors and friends for a "qultin'" or quilting bee. The quilt could be for the person who invited them, or for a community event such as a baptism or a wedding. Of course, the person who did the inviting would be sure to furnish the "dinner", even if there were twenty women there. If it was a community project, then all would share in bringing the food ... like a ‘pot-luck' dinner. Grandma always said that many times they could do a quilt in a day, or even, two a day if they "got out" at breakfast. I would guess that they rather determined for themselves how much they wanted to do at a "sitting" ... after all it was also a social event. Grandma would, as I said, inspect every quilt between her fingers. Even with severe arthritis, she could judge the stitches. I once heard her say something to the effect that the stitches on one quilt were so "long" you'd catch your toes in them. Today, if you need something done, you do it yourself or hire it done. In Grandma's day folks helped each other with things. Quilts were just one of those "neighborly" things folks did with each other. There was canning, or barn raising, or cabin raising, or butchering, or corn husking, or pea "thrashing", or any number of "excuses" to make a social event. Remember in gone-by days, folks lived far apart and human company was rare outside the nuclear family. It probably would be a great idea to be historically accurate and thus dispell the myth portion of the above social and community activities, especially as it applies to quilting. Readers of these articles are familiar with stories, traditions as far back as, say, 150 years ago. This is due to many of us remembering the stories of our grand and great grandparents. Thus, we must remember that our colonial grandmothers spent their days spinning, weaving and sewing to keep their families in clothing. They didn't have the imported fabrics with which to make quilts. It wasn't until the 1840s when textiles became available and affordable to our ancestors. e-la-di-e-das-di ha-wi nv-wa-do-hi-ya nv-wa-to-hi-ya-da. (May you walk in peace and harmony) Wado, Bill -=- Other sites worth visiting: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/SOIL http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/ILMASSAC http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ne/state/BillsArticles/LittleEgypt/intro.html