Gracey's Space

Thursday, January 18, 2007

You probably have discovered my pattern here. When I have writer's block, I use pictures. Last weekend Jeremy and I went to explore a little city outside of Columbia. The only thing there was to do in this place was to see their museum. As we are following the directions on how to get there, we turn into the last street and looking around all we see are residential homes. We turned back around to retrace our steps and I see this old fashioned looking home and in the back you could see what looked like a office type of building. This must be it, right? We get out of the car and notice that all around us there is not even one single car. Jeremy says, "This is just weird." I agree with him so we hop back in the car deciding what our next move will be. As we drive past the house, I notice across the street the sign that says "Lexington County Museum". The sign looked like it was falling apart and we almost didn't go in, but Jeremy thought we might as well since we were there. I was having my doubts but I was actually glad that we did. The place is run by volunteers and since admission was only $3 per person, it was no wonder that it didn't look all that good. Here are some pics and I'll write a little something about each one.

Here is the old sign that Jer insisted we take a picture of.

This little house was built by a revolutionary war soldier who was an immigrant from Germany. This place was so tiny inside that I just can't complain about our apartment anymore. :) The German people couldn't stand the humidity and heat in the SC summer so they built the floors of their homes in a strange way--you could see the ground in between each floorboard. They didn't care about being cold during the winter months; they only cared about being able to get some air through the floorboards during the summer.

This spinning wheel for cotton dates back to the time this soldier built the house. I believe there were about six or seven people living in that little place.

This house was owned by John Fox in the 1800's. He owned a plantation about 20 miles away from this place and this was his summer home. He was considered to be rich but the more I went through this house, the more I realized that his family all worked along side with their slaves. We imagine all rich people were like Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind but those people were like the Donald Trumps of today. What was considered wealthy in that day to our standards would be middle class families of today. They may have had slaves and a few house servants but the family still worked to keep the farms alive.

I don't know if you can tell in the picture but the chairs and dining room table were really short. It wasn't because they were short people, but it was designed like this for the purpose of not getting their floors and clothes dirty. Their logic was if the chairs were the same height as the table, less food would get on the floor and on them. When I first saw it, I thought that must have been the table meant for the children of the house. I was wrong.

This was their cotton mill and right below where Jeremy is standing, there were these huge looking bowls just sitting on the ground. I asked what those were for and I found out they would slaughter their pigs and other animals in them. Yuck!!

Now that I think back on the way they lived back then, I don't think I would have survived. Nowadays we are all so spoiled with the modern conveniences we have; I just can't imagine ever living the way they did. Thank God I just have to go to the local store to get my meat and not have to slaughter it myself and then hang it in a smokehouse for a few days before I can eat it. Can you imagine it??? When I left that place I was thinking to myself, "Thank you, Lord, for letting me be born during the modern time!"

posted by Gracey at Thursday, January 18, 2007 -

5 Comments:

At 1/18/2007 7:21 AM, Jay said…

That was a really great trip report. I love to visit old places like that and see how people lived so long ago. It's amazing how they survived with so little.
At 1/18/2007 10:41 AM, MoJoKat said…

I agree 100% with you, I dont thank God enough for allowing me to be born in the era I'm in. I don't think I could do without MANY of our modern conveniences. Thank Him Thank Him Thank Him!
At 1/18/2007 10:46 AM, Anonymous said…

I can't help but wonder if people in a few hundred years are going to look back at us and wonder how on earth we managed to deal with our primitive life!
At 1/18/2007 11:40 AM, Anonymous said…

I sometimes wonder if I would have made it back in those days. Probably not! I like some of my comforts way too much. :-)

Great story and cute pictures too Gracey!
At 1/18/2007 10:29 PM, Angela Marie said…

I love seeing how people lived back then. I enjoyed my great- grandma telling me stories of her childhood. These are wonderful pictures.... thank you for visiting me and leaving a comment!