Growing Seasons

In 2008 the Barn Quilts of Kankakee County was formed. It designed, painted and installed ten quilts on barns and corncribs around the county. In 2009, nine additional quilts are to be installed in June and will be added to this short video.

In 2008, the Pat Alcorn homeschooling art class in Herscher, Illinois designed, painted and assisted in the installation of a 8 x 8’ plywood barn quilt on the corncrib on Pat’s mother’s farm just west of Kankakee, Illinois, 40 miles south of Chicago. Ten quilts were installed last summer, at least nine more in 2009.

The class will be creating another barn quilt in the summer of 2009.

Hedge Rows

Some of the paintings from Growing Seasons

Holiday Sound

Recording

From the Past

Ideal Interchangeable Music Box

Beginning in the late 1800s, the Regina automatic music boxes enabled consumers to enjoy popular music at home without the need for live performances.

Older parlor music boxes had played round metal cylinders with a predetermined series of musical selections on them. These limited by cost, along with size and weight for portability.

Manufactured by the Regina Company of Rahway, New Jersey, the new product was advertised as “the queen of automatic musical instruments.” It came in a wooden case and played interchangeable steel disks called ‘tune sheets’.

The public was now able to obtain popular music more quickly through the purchase of individual tune sheets. Availability through mail-order catalogs also increased the Regina’s popularity.

To play a disk, the clock gear-like mechanism was first wound with a crank. Music was created as the tune sheet revolved and the projections under it plucked the combed teeth inside the box.

In 1897, a compact automatic Regina ranged in price from $14.94 to $29.75, depending on the size. Tune sheets also came in sizes to fit different models. Individual disks were 30 cents apiece, for the smaller Regina, and 55 cents, for the larger size. Over 300 musical selections were available in this format.

The production of the gramophone, with its newer technology and records, eventually replaced the automatic music box.

In the late fall and early winter, Papa left for the fields about daybreak with the lumber wagon pulled by the horses and Tippie at his side. He tied a kerosene lantern to the wagon, packed several thick jelly sandwiches, and took along a jar of hot coffee, which Mama had wrapped in a winter coat so it would stay warm.

Papa had to harvest the corn by hand. He walked alongside the wagon, cutting each ear of corn off the stalk with a sharp, metal husking hook strapped over his mitten. Then he removed the husk and threw the ear into the wagon, where the bang board stopped it from falling out. Whenever Tippie heard the banging stop, he came running up to see if Papa had a bit of sandwich he might share.

When the weather was bad, the work went slowly. Heavy snow often meant that the ears of corn had to be picked off the ground. Every morning Mama sewed flannel cloths around Papa’s wrists, but by evening they were in tatters; his mittens were worn into holes, and his wrists were raw and chapped.

The best ears of corn were saved for the next year’s crop. Mama stored the seed corn in sacks hanging from the attic rafters.

When we girls came home from school on those cold afternoons, we always heard Papa throwing the ears of corn against the bang board. When we ran to find him, he had a big smile for us. “What did you learn at school today?” he always asked. “Remember, those heads of yours are not just hat racks!”

Percussion Forge

The changing wildflowers of the countryside marked the passing seasons on the farm. As summer turned to fall and rural children went back to their one-room country schools, many of the wildflower blossoms had all but disappeared where they walked.

The bright yellow colors of late summer Black-Eyed Susans and Sunflowers lingered in the grassy ditches and along the fence rows. Some of the delicate white flowers of Queen Anne’s Lace still moved in the breeze near the last of the roadside blue chicory blossoms. Changes in the weather, the turn of the calendar and school bells marked the end of another summer.

Farm children of the early 1900s walked back and forth to their schoolhouses along dirt roads and in grassy ditches where wildflowers grew. While they herded cows in the summertime, there was also time to watch the changes in nature as they walked with the animals.

There was always something interesting to see. Some of the flowers bloomed early in the season and others later. Certain ones always grew near moisture and shade, while others were in open areas and full sun.