I've heard about the place. And I've driven by the signs for it countless times in my years of making the trek up and down I-15 to visit with my parents, but I've never had the time to stop. Usually it was Sunday afternoon and we needed to get back in time for a decent bedtime because we had school and work the next day. Or it was late Friday evening and we're trying to make it to St. George before midnight.
But this weekend we only spent on night in St. George with my parents. We came home on a Saturday, and still had Sunday in front of us for sleeping in and relaxing. And we still had plenty of daylight to burn with no real hurry to burn it.
So I asked The Man if we could stop by and check it out.
And he indulged me.
We learned about how it was settled by a family (the Hinckley family to be more exact, as in Gordon B. Hinckley's grandparents). We learned about how the built it and the visitors who came by.
We saw the telegraph room where they received correspondence and saw the giant dining room where the women worked from sun up to sun down to take care of feeding their guests.
I was amazed by that room. The effort of baking everything from scratch without any modern conveniences.
They even churned their own butter from the milk they collected themselves from the cows. You know, seriously, I think I'm busy but realistically I spend an hour at the grocery every two weeks buying everything I need and it takes me a half hour, generally, to get a decent dinner on the table for my family. I couldn't imagine all the gardening, slaughtering, churning, mixing, and baking just for basic meals through the day.
Don't even get me started on the laundry situation.
Though it made me think about how wasteful we are as a people now. Our tour guide told us they would take the mattress cover, that was used to hold the hay and what not, when it was wearing out and take the good portion of it and sew it into a pair of pants. When the pants wore out they would strip it and weave it into a rug. When the rug wore thin they would save it for winter and burn it in the fire for heat. After the fire was out they would save the ashes to use in making soap.
I'm all about recycling but I have nothing on the pioneers and early settlers. If they didn't live that way, they had nothing. Their abundance depended on them doing this. Me? I just hit Target. It kind of makes me feel ashamed of how much I take for granted.
Also, how I decorate my house is a statement. We buy the things for their aesthetic appeal. It has to look good, it has to look nice. Back then it was use it or go with out, who cares if the scraps of material match, just make a quilt to stay warm.
The phrase "sleep tight" came from these days when the box springs were ropes tied across the bed frame. As weight was on these ropes, from sleeping bodies, they would get stretched out so the would need to be tightened again. Hence, sleep tight.
We checked out the gun holes in the rock walls. It was a fort after all but they never saw any danger there. Our tour guide told us that Brigham Young had said about the Indians that it was better to feed them than to fight them.
Another saying we learned about concerned this contraption:
This is called a weasel. It spun yarn and was designed to spin around so many times to measure out about a skeen of yarn. When it hit that point it popped. So we have the song, Pop Goes the Weasel.
The toothbrushes disgusted me. They were made with bone, not too bad, and... swine hair. I think if I had to brush me teeth with swine hair I would go with having rotten teeth.
Okay maybe not because I literally have nightmares about my teeth falling out but come on. This would be a rock and a hard place for me. Teeth falling out against putting swine hair in your mouth. Those settlers were strong I tell you.
Thanks to my man for putting up with a "church" stop, but I totally dig this stuff.
Next on my list is the State House in Fillmore.
I'm just hoping they don't have pig hair toothbrushes there.
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