The Adventures of a Novice Historian

Photo Credit: https://www.vimbly.com/ This week was my first week back at Vance after being on vacation. Wednesday, like most Wednesdays, was a slow day. All I did was water the garden and pick up green walnuts for Kimberly and Lauren to use during the Folk Festival. It was so dead that Lauren sent me home 30 minutes early. Thursday on the other hand was busy. We had a group of 22 kindergartners, from the Verner Center for Early Learning, visit the site. They began their day with us by going on a tour of the main house, tool shed, loom house, and slave cabin. After the tour, they were taken to the class room for the History Mysteries lesson. This is were the kids get to handle some of the artifacts. During a normal lesson the kids are divided in to groups and each group is given an artifact, but the adults with them went "off script", as Lauren called it, and started passing the artifacts between groups. Following the lesson, they broke for a 30 minute lunch. After lunc...

Photo credit: Dennis Owenby   Yesterday was the first day of my internship at the Vance birthplace in Weaverville, NC. I worked one day this week and was very nervous. I've never done anything like this before, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but everyone was very kind to me and that put me at ease. There are three full time staff members, Kimberly Floyd who is the site manager, Lauren May who is the assistant site manager, and Dennis Owenby who maintains the ground and does light interpreter duties. I have also been told that there is a part time employee named Timothy. I'm sure I will meet him at some point.       I spent my time following Lauren around. I learned how the office works, how the cash register in the gift shop works, and how to greet people as they enter the visitor's center. In the morning I went on a small guided tour with a woman and her three small children. In the afternoon we had a summer day camp visit. There were 43 children ranging in ...