History comes alive at DNES
(L-R) Sonja Holladay, Essie Holladay and Doris Puckett demonstrate lye soap making for a group of first graders at Danville-Neel’s Pioneer Day.
Danville-Neel Elementary school students had the opportunity to live a day in the past recently as participants in the school’s annual Pioneer Day Celebration.
More than a dozen learning stations were set up both inside and outside the school building. They were operated mostly by grandparents and other senior citizens who live in the community. Old-time crafts and country skills they demonstrated included campfire cooking, blacksmithing, lard rendering, corn shelling, wood splitting, soap making, quilting and music making.
“This is one of biggest, if not the biggest, events of the school year,” said Jane Knight, project coordinator. “The children look forward to it and really enjoy it. We always have a lot of grandparents and other seniors in the community volunteer to come and demonstrate some of the skills they developed and used on the farm 50 to 75 years ago. This reinforces what our fourth graders are studying about in Alabama history and gives them an appreciation for their heritage.”
Yarn spinning and butter making stations were operated by representatives of Burritt Museum in Huntsville. Using a 100-year-old spinning wheel, Claudia Shar showed students how their great- great- grandparents used lint from cotton to spin the yarn they used to make their own clothing. In a room across the hallway, Marge Christen demonstrated how farm families made butter and buttermilk from the cows they milked. Each student also got to try his hand at churning milk.
A new addition to the day’s event s was a mock-up of a one-room schoolhouse. Students were assigned to write a spelling word on individual blackboards and also were allowed to play games like hop scotch, checkers and dominos. A dunce cap and stool in a corner were used to discipline unruly students.
Throughout the morning students took turns riding around campus on in trailers pulled by tractors and a wagon pulled by two mules. They also had the opportunity to ride a saddle horse.
A delicious Thanksgiving buffet dinner was served in the school cafeteria and enjoyed by about 1,000 students, parents, grandparents and faculty members.
Cafeteria supervisor Vickie Sanford said the meal required two days of work from staff and volunteers. The menu consisted of 160 pounds of sliced turkey, 160 pounds of chicken for the cornbread dressing, 46 gallons of green beans, 12 gallons of cranberry sauce, 800 yeast rolls and 14 sheet cakes in addition to the ingredients needed for apple and broccoli salads.
