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COMMUNITY PAGE 1-C
December 16, 2010
CALENDAR SATURDAY, DEC. 18
■ A gift wrapping party for teens and adults will be held at the Milan Public Library. Come for hot cocoa and a chance to wrap your gifts away from curious onlookers. Bring your own wrapping odds and ends – the library will supply additional wrapping paper, ribbons, tape, etc. Registration is requested by calling 439-1240.
FAR LEFT: Beverly Larsen uses a sockweaving machine that dates to the 1890s at Rentschler Farm Sunday as part of the annual Christmas celebration held by the Saline Area Historical Society.
SATURDAY, DEC. 19
■ A parent night out will be hosted by Children’s Creative Learning Center, 5939 Saline Ann Arbor Road in Saline from 5:30 to 10 p.m. The event will have a holiday theme, and the featured movie will be “The Search for Santa Paws.” The evening will also include a pizza dinner, snack, holiday crafts, games and more. The event is open to public. For more information, call 429-9494. ■ Indoor Winter Farmers’ Market will be held from 8 a.m. to noon at 199 W. Michigan Ave. for the last time this year. Farm and other locally produced items for sale. Call 216-7473 for information.
MONDAY, DEC. 20 THROUGH FRIDAY, DEC. 24
■ The first week of Winter Kids Camp will be offered by Saline Parks and Recreation. Campers ages 5 through 12 will play games, make crafts, go swimming and much more. Camp is held at the recreation center, and parents can drop off their children as early as 7 a.m. and pick up as late as 6 p.m. The field trip on Wednesday will be to Maplewood Lanes. For more information or to register, contact Saline Parks and Recreation at 429-3502.
MONDAY, DEC. 27 THROUGH FRIDAY, DEC. 31
■ The second week of Winter Kids Camp will be offered by Saline Parks and Recreation. Campers ages 5 through 12 will play games, make crafts, go swimming and much more. Camp is held at the recreation center, and parents can drop their children off as early as 7 a.m. and pick up as late as 6 p.m. The field trip on Wednesday will be to the Quality 16 movie theater. For more information or to register, contact Saline Parks and Recreation at 429-3502.
TUESDAY, JAN. 25, 2011
■ Saline High School will host its annual Choral Night at the Saline High School Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
SUNDAY, JAN. 30
■ A workshop with Saline Fiddlers will be held from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m. at the Saline Middle School orchestra room. The workshop is free to enrolled students in sixth through 12th grades interested in learning to fiddle. To register, call 1-866257-5333, ext. 1. For more information, visit www.salinefiddlers. com.
THURSDAY, FEB. 3
■ Saline Fifth Grade Beginning Band Concerts will be held at Saline Middle School Auditorium at 6:30 and 7:45 p.m. The concerts are free and open to the public.
THURSDAY, FEB. 10
■ Saline Middle School Bands Pre-Festival Concerts will be held at Saline Middle School Auditorium. The seventhgrade band plays at 6:30 p.m., and the eighth grade band plays at 8 p.m. Both concerts are free and open to the public.
SUNDAY, FEB. 13
■ Auditions for Saline Fiddlers will be held from 2:15 to 3:30 p.m. in the Saline Middle School orchestra room. To be eligible, candidates should maintain a 3.0 grade point average and be enrolled in a Saline High School music class at the start of the 2011 school year. Violin, viola, cello, bass guitar, guitar, mandolin, banjo, dobro, drum set, piano and sound tech positions are open. To register, call 1866-257-5333, ext. 1. For more information, visit www.salinefiddlers.com.
LEFT: Vivian Hoeft sits next to a doll she donated to the Saline Area Historical Society that once belonged to her mother. Photos by Steven Howard
Celebrating
life on the farm
By Steven Howard Heritage Media
t was a tale of two days last weekend as the Saline Area Historical Society hosted its annual Christmas on the Farm at the Rentschler farmhouse Saturday and Sunday. While a heavy snow added a certain holiday ambiance to the occasion Sunday, it kept the large crowd away that organizers had seen the day prior. Historical society board member Agnes Dikeman said the amount of people who showed up Saturday was spectacular. “It was excellent,” she said. “We had a good turnout, probably around 150 people.” The house was decorated to portray a 1930s, Depression-era holiday season, complete with a tree in the parlor adorned with homespun ornaments, popcorn garland and the like. Irene Jedele was describing how the ornaments and other decorations were made as guests came in Sunday, and she said she can remember making many of the same type of crafts. Making the popcorn garland was an intricate, but very tasty pastime, Jedele said. “We probably ate as much as we strung,” she joked. In an adjacent room, Beverly Larsen of Fairfield Township was spinning socks on a sockknitting machine that dates to the 1890s. She said she has been practicing the craft for about seven years, coming to it based on her interest in similar mediums largely lost to time. “I was doing other lost art type things, like chair painting and loom weaving,” she said. Though she often uses wool as a primary material, Jedele said she also frequently uses wool blends, such as those with a bit of nylon, to add to the overall comfort and durability of the footwear. Though the actual spinning is fairly quick, Jedele said she has to do quite a bit of preparatory work. “I spend quite a lot of time with the yarn ahead of time,” she said. Upstairs, volunteer Vivian Hoeft was describing the significance of what are known as feather trees within both German and American cultures. The trees are made by twisting feathers around wire to resemble a traditional pine tree. While the practice originated in Germany based on environmental concerns related to pine tree preservation and other factors, Hoeft said immigrants
I
LEFT: Leslee Niethammer displays confections popular in the German-American holiday tradition at Rentschler Farm Sunday as part of the annual Christmas celebration held by the Saline Area Historical Society. ABOVE: A traditional feather tree is displayed at Rentschler Farm Sunday as part of the annual Christmas celebration held by the Saline Area Historical Society.
from that county brought the art form with them to the United States. “It was very popular in the 1930s in America with German Americans,” she said. In the dinning area, volunteer Leslee Niethammer spoke concerning a wide array of confections, the styles of which were also imported from Germany with the new set of Americans who brought the recipes. Niethammer said she can remember some of the indulgent dough-based goods in her own familial past, saying she
Outside, Dikeman was among several people helping to oversee operation of the gift shop. She said the store was highly patronized on Saturday when the weather was good. “A lot of people came out to the gift shop to do their holiday shopping,” she said. “We had recycled ornaments on the tree selling for $1 and they almost sold out.” and her family members would Also popular were small gift make an egg, flour and milk items. mixture that was eventually “The little stocking stuffers, fried in butter and served with that’s what people were looking fruit toppings such as apples for,” she said. “The Saline caland plums. Even then, such endars, we also sold a lot of.” food was viewed as very rich Although the historical sociand served only on special occaety didn’t start the Christmas sions.
Niethammer said she can remember some of the indulgent dough-based goods in her own familial past, saying she and her family members would make an egg, flour and milk mixture that was eventually fried in butter and served with fruit toppings such as apples and plums.
celebration at Rentschler right after it purchased the house, Dikeman said the event has been going on for quite a while. “I believe this is our eighth or ninth year,” she said. Having established such a longstanding tradition, Dikeman said word has gotten around and people travel from across the area to attend. “We had visitors from all over,” she said, “from Ohio, Kalamazoo, Dundee, Canton Ypsilanti and, of course, a lot form Ann Arbor and Saline.” Dikeman said the historical society is looking forward to opening the house again next year, as events will kick of again at Rentschler Farm on the first Saturday of May. In total, Dikeman said a group comprised of 24 volunteers and board members helped run the holiday event, with half working each weekend day. For more information on the Saline Area Historical Society, visit www.salinehistory.org. Steven Howard can be reached at 429-7380 or showard@heritage.com. Follow his blog at http://heritageweststaffblog.blogspot.com.