Old-fashioned fun - Danville-Neel Pioneer Day brings community together

By By Clif Knight, Hartselle Enquirer
Demonstrations of old-time country crafts blended with a barrelful of fun and frolic and heaped-high plates of turkey and dressing put Danville-Neel Elementary School students and their parents and guests in a festive holiday mood recentlyas they participated in the school’s annual Pioneer Day Celebration.
Students learned from hands-on activities how their grandparents and great-grandparents lived 50 to 75 years ago when electricity didn’t exist in many rural communities. With the help of adult volunteers, some of whom came from the Burritt Museum in Huntsville, they witnessed and took part in churning milk for butter and rendering lard and cracklings from fresh pork fat. They also made dolls from corn shucks, ate fritters fried in an iron skillet on an open fire and listened to music made from handmade string instruments.
Outdoors, they rode around the campus in a cotton trailer pulled by a diesel tractor, tried their hands at sawing firewood with a hand- pulled crosscut saw and shelled corn from the cob with a hand-operated sheller.
Last but certainly not least, they were joined by parents, grandparents and neighbors for a Thanksgiving feast in the school cafeteria. The menu was topped by turkey and cornbread dressing and sliced roasted turkey and included green beans, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, apple salad, chef’s salad, cranberry sauce, homemade rolls and drink.