History Pulling on my Heartstrings

A Betty lamp in the Dutch Out Kitchen of the Bergen County Historical Society.

Who am I? I love a great many things from different eras: 1920s and 30s music and films; 1950s and 60s architecture and clothing, campy 1970s sitcoms like the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family. My teen years were in the grunge rock music era of the early 1990s so I still for old times sake put on Pearl Jam's Ten and some alternative rock like Lush, James and other bands on 120 Minutes that I'd tape on my VCR when MTV still played music. I'm drawn to many things Irish, British and French. But above all else, I find the strongest heartstring pull toward early American history. I'm not sure if I lived during these times. I'd rather read pioneer diaries than Facebook updates. Yes, I dream about going back to Paris, but I'd love to go to Plimoth Plantation in Massachusetts, see Jefferson's Monticello and Washington's Mount Vernon, visit Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House sites. If I had my dream yearlong American road trip, I'd see all of these. Steve and I are hoping for a few days in Philadelphia this spring, since my third grade self really didn't appreciate the Liberty Bell or Independence Hall when I was last there. I think my 36-year-old self will see it in a different light.

I attend many events at the Bergen County Historical Society in River Edge, New Jersey, which is very close. They recognize a lot of old festivals related to the seasons. This time, as last year, we celebrate Brigit's Day and Candlemas. View my post, Cause for Cheer, Midwinter is Here, for last year's festivities. Here, Mary in the Dutch Out Kitchen with a batch of homemade beeswax candles.

From their web site,

"Brigit's Day and Candlemas come midway between the winter solstice and spring equinox, when snowdrops, the first flower of spring, make their appearance, signaling nature's awakening from winter's sleep. Candlemas is named for the blessing of candles, used to protect homes from lightning, evil spirits, and for procession through farm field and orchard.

As evidenced by Groundhog's Day, weather prognostication was commonly practiced in anticipation of spring sowing. Good weather at Candlemas is taken to indicate severe winter weather later. Hence, the saying, If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, there'll be two winters in the year. Another old English proverb proclaimed, If Candlemas be fair and bright, winter has another flight. If Candlemas brings clouds and rain, winter will not come again.

Rush crosses, woven on Brigit's Eve, were believed to protect the house and livestock from adversity. The feast was celebrated with a supper of pancakes taken from a plate laid on a rush cross."

Candlemas fare: apple crepes and mashed potatoes.

The Black Horse tavern. Wouldn't it be wonderful to gather here to discuss our thoughts on the State of the Union address? I sure have some. The future of the country? What so concerns us as America's sons and daughters?

I couldn't help think of the Little House series when I saw this wooden slate in the gift shop.

A harpist and fine storyteller performed in the Steuben house. I had no idea Mary Malone was about a girl who died in the plague, or that Danny Boy was about a father who longs for his son who he sent abroad for a better life. As I gazed out the window I felt a sudden chill. A ghost? Just the cold January day?

Watching this historical reenacter cut potatoes for a potato cheddar corn chowder, my blood pressure went down the same way it does when I pet the family dog Scotty.
There's something almost meditative about cooking a pot of soup or stew from scratch on a cold winter's day. Do you know what I asked for as a birthday gift? The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Classic Stories by Barbara M. Walker. We devalue tasks like cooking in modern life. I think we've become far too disconnected. Walker writes, "There was...a strong movement spreading westward to give recognition to housekeeping as a profession requiring scientific training. Catharine Beecher, with help from her sister Harriet Beecher Stowe, not only wrote outstanding housekeeping manuals but also founded schools where women studied domestic arts along with academic subjects."

The "domestic arts." I love that term. There's something to be said for the domestic arts, and also how financially empowering they are. In modern life many of us don't or can't do much or anything our fore mothers and fathers did. Woodwork, making our own clothes or even simple sewing, gardening. Think how heavily we (I include myself in the we) really on convenience foods. We don't have any widespread festivals hoping for a good crop. The local ShopRite or Trader Joe's is a short drive away.

Maybe it's that connection to these things that so pull on my heartstrings. Do you feel a heartstring pull toward a certain time in history? Where would your time machine stop?

Cause for Cheer, Midwinter is Here

I bring tidings of hope for winter-weary souls: the midwinter is here. Now, it's a solid march toward spring. Shall we celebrate with the Bergen County Historical Society? Two midwinter feasts, Brigit's Day and Candlemas come halfway "between the winter solstice and spring equinox, when snowdrops, the first flower of spring, make their appearance, signaling nature's awakening from winter's sleep," the group tells us.

From my parents' home last winter, spring spoke via snowdrops whispering she will soon be here. Let Mother Nature have her temper tantrums (although the way we treat her, an outburst is understandable). Winter's days are numbered.


More from our teachers at BCHS:

"Candlemas is named for the blessing of candles, used to protect homes from lightning, evil spirits, and for procession through farm field and orchard. As evidenced by Groundhog's Day, weather prognostication was commonly practiced in anticipation of spring sowing. Hence, the saying, "If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, there'll be two winters in the year.""

In the Dutch out kitchen, Joyce is making beeswax candles (the pot where she dipped from is on the ground below). Tallow (from animal fat) candles were far more common, as beeswax would have been used among other things as a sealant for preserve jars of food.

Consider the labor and art form of candles, now mostly mass produced of petroleum-based paraffin. With such a process, you can understand why "farmers hours" were kept - up with the light, to bed with the dark.

Mary displaying a Betty lamp

Pancakes which resembled the golden disc of the sun were typical fare on Candlemas. I feasted on their close cousin - the crepe filled with apples, $3 - and a hot cider, $1, in their Black Horse Tavern.

From BCHS,

"In ancient Ireland, Brigit "the provider of all sustenance and agricultural bounty....was associated in folklore with the cow and its nourishing milk. Her feast coming when the winter larder was nearly empty and milk scarce, womenfolk "gathered a drop" of milk for churning on Brigit's Eve.

On Brigit's Eve, each family boiled and drained potatoes, with every member, young and old, taking a turn with the masher. The pot was placed in the middle of the kitchen floor on a sheath of straw. The mashed potatoes were served with a large lump of butter nesting in the center, with men eating from a large dish and women from the pot."

As a nation of immigrants, reflect on the traditions you've brought from foreign lands through your familial line.

Consider you are a settler, and your supplies are beginning to dwindle as you look toward the next planting season with a hopeful heart. So detached from our nation's food supply, we think little in modern times of the weather's toll on farmers - and too often think solely about how the weather impacts immediate, short-term matters, like mood.

Also ponder this disgraceful information: "A quarter to half of all food produced in the United States goes uneaten — left in fields, spoiled in transport, thrown out at the grocery store, scraped into the garbage or forgotten until it spoils." (Read "From Farm to Fridge to Garbage Can" from The New York Times.)

These two midwinter feasts did bring merriment and sense of tradition, but they were also essentially about the basic human need that transcends time and boundaries to harvest food for survival come spring. Today we are so wasteful - a great disrespect to the farmer (or more often migrant worker), animal (who suffers so terribly under our factory farming system) and to the Earth whose soil bore its fruit.

A sight of beauty, a harvest in the snow, soon to feed hungry souls.

One modern convenience is overlooked by most. I am grateful not to meet winter's harshness when nature calls.

Snow blankets even that which will restore fire and light.

Gaze into the simple beauty of the Betty lamp beside the eighteenth century window. How many of our possessions will last centuries?

Do you enjoy learning about history through travel, lectures, documentaries, films, books and group events?

The great historian David McCullough reflected,

"History is not about dates and quotes and obscure provisos. History is about life, about change, about consequences, cause and effect. It's about the mystery of human nature, the mystery of time. And it isn't just about politics, the military and social issues, which is almost always the way it's taught. It's about music, and poetry, and drama, and science and medicine and money and love."

For all those reasons and more, we shall look over our shoulder often at the past and embrace history. To understand who we were, and who we want to become.