The Adventures of a Novice Historian

Photo Credit: Lauren May This was an exciting week at Vance! Leading tours and PUPPIES!!! On Thursday, I lead my first guided tour site!!! My first tour was the 11 o'clock tour which is the first of the day and I took out Lauren and a young family of three who have just moved to the area. The couple had an adorable daughter of about five. She was very interested in the artifacts in the house, so I played to that. I got down on her level, and directed that section of the tour at her. I was very nervous leading the tour, but Lauren said in our chat afterwords that I had done well. Because of nerves there were a few things I left out, like the Buncombe Turnpike, but Lauren said that not a big deal and that with every tour I would remember the information I had forgotten in the last one. She was right. She also thought that nervousness could have been because she was there watching, so she let me take the next one out by myself, and again she was right. The second tour went ev...

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...

Because Lauren is going to Boston tomorrow and I'm going to Charleston with my family on the 9th, I worked an extra day at Vance this week. And after three straight days of nothing but torrential rain, the sun finally came out! Today was planting day, YAY! When I went in this morning I did not know that I would be planting, so I was really not dressed for it. I wore my dark blue day dress and my Mary-Janes. I did not let that stop me though. So with determination, I took off my shoes, tied up my hair and got to work! Because I was unprepared for planting I didn't have my gardening gloves, cutters, or trowel with me, which meant I had to improvise. Lauren found me an old pair of artifact gloves, and I found a ladle and a knife in the kitchen. With these tools in hand and the bigger tools in the tool shed next to the garden I had everything I needed to work. The first thing I did was assess what plants Kimberly had been able to buy at Reems Creek Nursery earlier in the we...

Today was slow at Vance. It's been raining all day, so there have been no guests. I've spent most of my time working on the written aspect of my kitchen garden project. Yesterday on the other hand was a difficult day with lots of drama.  Yesterday was supposed to be planting day and Bob Bemis who works at Halifax came to help me, but it went in a completely different direction. My shift at Vance was 10 - 4pm so that we could get in the garden as soon as I got there, but when I arrived Bob was not there and I was told he would not arrive until noon. By the time he showed up it had been raining steadily for 45 minutes with no sign of stopping for the foreseeable future. Bob did not care that it was pouring outside and made me work in the rain. Once we got to the garden he charged in and took over. In his attempt to finish cleaning out the site he yanked out the Bee balm I had asked Dennis to leave in place when he was clearing out the weeds last week, and not once did h...

Yesterday my father and I drove down to Gastonia to visit The Schiele Museum of Natural History & Planetarium. My purpose in driving to two hours to Gastonia was to see their 18th century backcountry farm exhibit. My hope was that they would have a kitchen garden and I would be able to confirm that the plants I chose for my garden at Vance were indeed accurate. My efforts were rewarded as all of the herbs I was looking for were in the museums garden. The herbs I want to plant are as follows: Parsley, Chives, Rosemary, Dill, Mint, Sorrel, Yarrow, Sage, Lavender, Chamomile, Bee balm, Thyme. I chose these they common in kitchen gardens because they are both culinary and medicinal. The versatility of these plants was very important in the backcountry in the 18th century as doctors were scares, so people had to create their own medicine. I was very pleased with the backcountry farm, but I was disappointed to learn that the museum does not have interpreters in the farm yard o...

Today was a slow day at Vance. No one wanted a guided tour, so Lauren and I spent our time going through the History Mystery trunks. Then later in the afternoon we restocked the books in the gift shop and marked down the books that were now on sale. I got to use the price gun which was fun! In other news, Lauren said today is National Intern day. So she posted a photo of me from yesterday which was taken outside the main house and introduced me to the world via their social media accounts. This is what she posted: Photo credit: Lauren May "Happy National Intern Day! Meet Jenna, our Summer/Fall intern! A student at UNC-Asheville with a love of all things UK, Jenna hopes to become an interpreter at a historic site across the pond. For now, she is learning the ins and outs of an NC historic site by leading tours, assisting in collections care, and learning about education programs. For her main project, Jenna will be using her green thumb to replant our interpretive herb gar...

I wrote my first social media post for the Vance birthplace's Facebook page this week which Lauren will use in September. "For a farmer like David Vance Jr, livestock was an important commodity. By raising animals like pigs, sheep, and cattle, Vance was providing, not only food for his family, but also goods that could be sold in Asheville. Cattle could produce meat, hides for tanning, and dairy products like milk and cheese. Sheep could produce wool for clothing, and meat. And pigs provided fat for cooking and bacon which could be smoked and cured for the winter. In fact, upon his death in 1843, David Vance Jr. left his wife 2,000 pounds of bacon." I chose livestock because it was important during this period of time in Western North Carolina. The Buncombe Turnpike which was a drover's road, going from Greenville, VA to Greenville, SC, moved livestock like pigs and cattle from one market to the next. This road ran right through the Reems Creek valley. Locate...