A Plank Road!

Authors Emily and Hilda Demuth on a plank road!

Emma, an “unknown Laura” and Olivia on the plank road at the Dousman Stagecoach Inn

Though Hilda might deny it, I believe we were giddy with delight when we first walked along the plank road by the Dousman Stagecoach Inn.   Never before had we been able to point to a plank road when describing our book to potential readers.

The “Days Gone By” event sponsored by the Elmbrook Historical Society put us right in front of an inn along a plank road and even provided girls running about in prairie dresses.  In truth, the girls were dressed up for a Laura Ingalls Wilder contest–but we couldn’t help but think of our characters Katie McEachron and Florence Mather when we saw them.   Unfortunately, one of our Lauras in the photo got away before we could identify her.

Spending an afternoon in Brookfield, Wisconsin, among people who keep history alive warmed our hearts, despite the chill of the day that made signing books difficult.  Many thanks to the volunteers at the Inn, and to the parents who brought their children to the event.  Someday those children will be the ones passing our shared history to future generations.

A Return to Days Gone By

Among the many books that Emily and I read and reread during our childhood were the Little House books of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  We are looking forward to celebrating this favorite author’s Wisconsin heritage when we appear as part of “Days Gone By” at the Dousman Stagecoach Inn in Brookfield, Wisconsin, on Sunday, October 4.

In paging through my copy of Little House in the Big Woods, I realized how much Emily and I had been influenced by Wilder’s depictions of pioneer life. Wilder’s book has chapter titles like “Summertime” and “Harvest,” and the rhythm of the seasons shapes Plank Road Summer as well. Pa Ingall’s fiddle-playing is echoed by our Old Man Caswell, and the dancing at Grandpa’s house in the Big Woods is, of course, the same kind of dancing that the Yorkville settlers enjoyed at the Mather Inn and the Racine County Fair.

Visitors to the Days Gone By tribute to Laura Ingalls Wilder sponsored by the Elmbrook Historical Society will have the opportunity to play games that Laura or her parents would have played, churn and make butter, learn how to card and spin wool, listen to storytellers read from Wilder’s books, and enter a Laura Ingalls Wilder costume contest.  Other activities will include a scavenger hunt, demonstrations of sharpshooting and woodcarving, and tours of the Dousman Stagecoach Inn, which once served travelers along a plank road.

Emily and I will be on hand with our antique wool drum carder, ready to sign copies of  Plank Road Summer or just have a chat about the pleasures of reading and writing about Days Gone By.

Graue Mill Changed our Story

When Hilda and I first began working on Plank Road Summer, we didn’t exactly know how to go about writing historical fiction. One weekend when Hilda was visiting me in Elmhurst, I suggested that we go to nearby Graue Mill to “soak up some atmosphere.” I had been to Graue Mill before and knew that it was built in 1852–the exact year our story was set–so I thought the place would be a good source of inspiration.

We watched the miller grind corn and examined all the household items and farm tools on the upper floors. As we were looking at the display in the basement, Hilda said to me, “You know, we should put the Underground Railroad in our book.” Graue Mill, of course, is a documented stop on the Underground Railroad in Illinois–a place where fugitive slaves were hidden on their way to freedom in Canada.

“We can’t just ‘put it in,’” I said. I’m the historical stickler. I told Hilda we would have to prove that fugitive slaves traveled through the Wisconsin neighborhood in which Plank Road Summer takes place before we could put that information in our story. But then Hilda reminded me of childhood stories of a neighbor’s house with a tunnel to the swamp in which slaves had supposedly hidden. And we remembered that a building in Rochester was supposed to have been used in helping slaves.

When we started to research the subject, we did indeed find the solid evidence we needed to prove that slaves could have made their way past the properties in our book. (Saying any more than that would be a spoiler) But yes, Hilda, we could (and did) put the Underground Railroad into our book. In fact, it became a large part of our story–and all because of a visit to Graue Mill.

On Sunday, Sept. 6, I’ll be at Graue Mill from 12:00-4:00. Come buy a book, make a wool butterfly, add a plank to my road. And soak up the atmosphere of Graue Mill and the Civil War encampment on the grounds. It’ll be a great day for inspiration!

Wade House Arts & Crafts Fair: Top Ten Delights

10.  Viewing the only known photograph of the Wade House featuring the plank road out front

9.  Setting up our book tent under an oak tree near a hitching-post and watering-trough like those at the Mather Inn

8.  Enjoying the sound of hoofbeats and the jingle of harness fittings as the stagecoach passed us on its rounds of the Wade House property

7.  Watching brother-in-law Franklin learn to card wool with an antique drum carder

6.  Helping children make butterflies and bookmark tassels out of rainbow-colored wool

5.  Seeing children’s faces when they learned the wool had been dyed with Kool-aid

4.  Being so enthralled by conversations about wool that Emily had to remind me to mention the book

3.  Hearing people say that after reading about us in the Sheboygan Press they had come to the fair specifically to buy our book

2.  Signing a book for a little girl descended from the Mathers of Racine County

1.  Finding Plank Road Summer on display in the Wade House gift shop

Return to the Wade House

I was a tween (though the term wasn’t used in the 1970s) when I first visited the Wade House in Greenbush, Wisconsin.  The restored historic inn caught my imagination, especially because back in Racine County, a neighbor’s house had also been an inn along a plank road.  At the Wade House I admired the tea leaf dishes in the dining room, the woodstove in the kitchen, and the third floor ballroom.

Back at home I spent hours poring over the photographs in the Wade House souvenir booklet,  imagining stories that might have taken place within the inn if the historically dressed mannequins had suddenly come to life.  Pretty soon I began to wonder what might have happened to a girl sitting on the front porch of my own house as she  watched the passing wagons stop next door at the Mather Inn.  Though the Mather Inn was a much smaller and humbler version of the Wade House, I thought the stories could be just as interesting.

Twentysome years later Hilda and I visited the Wade House again while we were researching Plank Road Summer.  Though the mannequins were gone, the docents who led us through the house gave us a detailed sense of what life at an inn was like.  We learned that innkeepers used to count out floorboards in the ballroom to mark sleeping arrangemements, a fact that made it into our book.

Soon Hilda and I will head to the Wade House once more, this time for a book-signing.   Back when I was making up stories about little girls in the ladies’ parlor I did not imagine that someday I would return with my own published novel about an inn along a plank road in Wisconsin.

Stop by to see us at the Wade House during the Arts and Crafts Fair–Sunday, August 23, from 9:00-3:00.  We’ll have our own craft projects going–you can make a wool-tassel book mark or wool butterfly and add a plank to our road.   Copies of Plank Road Summer will be available for purchase and signing.  We hope to see you there.

Friendly Competition at the Fair

The county fair is home to such competitions as cattle shows, tractor pulls, demolition derbies, pie auctions, and goat-milking contests.  I admit that my sister author Hilda rose victorious when we battled one another last weekend in the goat-milking competition at the Racine County Fair.  Oh, the humiliation we authors must suffer in search of publicity for our books.   Other than being soundly defeated in the competition, I had a lovely day at the fair.  

Our book tent featured an antique drum carder which fairgoers could crank to card wool for bookmark tassels.  We also had live music–our own fiddler Matt Lutze, Hilda on penny whistle, and editor Phil Martin on accordion.   We saw familiar faces and met new readers as people stopped by to purchase a book or find out more about Plank Road Summer.    Even the Fair Royalty visited our booth to add planks to the road we were building.

During every summer of our childhood Hilda and I spent five days at the Racine County Fair.   During the weeks prior to the fair we practiced showing our sheep, refinished furniture, sewed clothes, or worked on whatever other 4-H projects were to be entered into competition.  In our day, we could hardly take five steps at the fair without seeing someone we knew.   The fair was a community celebration, and everyone wanted to be part of it.

In Plank Road Summer this is the spirit we hope to communicate in our depiction of the first Racine County Fair.   I confess that after my defeat in the goat-milking contest, I am feeling a bit like the loser of the horse race.   But strike up the music– in a true community celebration, no matter who wins or loses, everyone can join in the dance.

See You at the Fair!

The Racine County Fair, that is. This weekend, Hilda and Emily Demuth, co-authors of Plank Road Summer, will be at the Racine County Fair in Union Grove, Wisconsin, on Saturday, August 1 (12-5 pm), to sign books and host some fun family activities.

Be sure to stop by their program tent on Saturday afternoon (it’s on the NE corner of Polley Drive and Creuziger Lane, near the Case exhibit, by Gate 5). For other events and directions, see the Racine County Fair website.

Why we’re excited: a major event in Plank Road Summer is . . . (drum roll, please) the first Racine County Fair! It was held in the early 1850s just west of the Mather Inn (one of the key places in the book).

Like the county fair itself, Plank Road Summer celebrates the community spirit and the rich heritage of the pioneer Midwest.

Hilda, Emily, and friends will be there Saturday from 12 to 5 pm. Besides signing books, they’re hosting wool-carding on an antique drum carder, a bit of live old-time fiddle music, and a display on Racine County history.

So come on down to the fair! Enjoy the rides, the 4-H exhibits . . . and meet the authors of this exciting novel for kids about county fairs, pioneer life, plank roads, fugitive slaves . . . and more!

From Plank Road Summer:

Even though she had watched the preparations day by day, Florence was still astonished at her first sight of the Racine County Fair. The north end of the Doanes’ front forty was lined with nearly a hundred wagons and buggies. The clamor of livestock provided a constant accompaniment to all the other goings-on.

Among the dozen enormous tents, Florence could pick out the dinner tent in which ladies of the Scotch Settlement church and the Methodist chapel were working together to feed hungry fairgoers. Next to the dinner tent stood a dance platform where a fiddler sawed a merry tune. Florence remembered someone’s claim that there would be enough players that the music at the fair would never end.

Mrs. Mather led the way to the domestic skills exhibits, which were flanked by a brilliant wall of quilts swaying on a line strung between two tents.

(As you may know, quilts and quilting also play a big role in the book!)

Hope to see you this weekend!

A Homegrown Book Tour

There’s nothing like homegrown, whether you’re talking tomatoes or sweet corn or even book tours. This week Emily and I made a quick trip to Wisconsin for two book events, both of which featured delightful down-home folks and homemade desserts.

After meeting with our accountant/manager (also known as Mom) in Yorkville on Wednesday, we headed west for a book signing in Cooksville.  On the way, we left a copy of Plank Road Summer at the Milton House, Wisconsin’s best-known Underground Railroad station.  Years ago at the Milton House, Emily and I had discovered the names of steamships that served as “floating stations,”  smuggling fugitives from Wisconsin harbors to freedom on Canadian shores.

A bottle of wine with a souvenir Milton House label led us down the street to the Northleaf Winery, housed in an 1850 wheat warehouse.   The winery’s logo features a sheaf of wheat and the slogan “The winery with deep roots.”  We enjoyed sampling local wines, and owner Gail Nordlof bought a copy of Plank Road Summer.

When we arrived in Cooksville, innkeepers Bob and Martha Degner invited us to join them for dinner in the barn.  An ingeniously renovated 1914 barn is now the Degners’ home, and the original house on the property has become a bed-and-breakfast known as the Cooksville Farmhouse Inn.  Fellow writers, take note–this beautiful old farmhouse on ten acres of restored prairie would be an ideal place for a writers’ retreat at any time of year.

Later that evening at the Cooksville Community Center, which is an 1886 schoolhouse at one corner of the Cooksville commons, we spoke about Wisconsin history to community members who take great pride in the unique heritage  of “the town that time forgot.”

During our drive through central Wisconsin on Thursday we saw almost as many orange construction signs as red barns, but the countryside was so beautiful we generally enjoyed the scenic detours.  In Kimberly we met with our publicist (also known as sister Gretchen), who welcomed us to “the kind of bed-and-breakfast where you make your own bed and get your own breakfast.”   At Gretchen’s house we also got to read to toddlers and help put them to bed.

At the Kimberly Public Library our audience included many young mothers eager for a “grown-up” evening.   We hope they appreciated hearing about our own struggles as mothers trying to make time to write.  We know we appreciated the homemade black raspberry bars and chocolate chip cookies served at our book events.  Even better were the folks who welcomed us not as outsiders, but as members of a community in which people cherish literature, local history, and Midwestern values.  There’s nothing like homegrown.

“They wrestled for it”

“I think they wrestled for it.”  This was one Wisconsin student’s answer when we asked who had the right-of-way to the planks if two wagons were traveling toward one another on a one-lane plank road.

Since the book launch in May, Hilda and I  have spoken to various groups at schools and museums and bookstores.  Last week we were guest speakers at the Graham Public Library in Union Grove, Wisconsin, as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of our hometown library.  In  our historical presentation, we spoke about how the stories we’d heard as children had influenced our writing.  Several members of the audience also had stories to share that evening.

The biggest news is that we think we have found the old McEachron tollhouse.  A former neighbor from a mile or so east on the plank road (just past the Rise) said that she had been told that her house was once a tollhouse.  As Hilda and I drove by the the house in question, beyond the tree branches and building additions we saw the unmistakable lines of a tollhouse like the one on the cover of Plank Road Summer.  We suspect that this is indeed “our” tollhouse, moved to that location after the Plank Road era.

One woman recalled that when she taught at Waites Corners School, Edith McEachron would visit and tell stories of the early days in Yorkville.  Potawatomi Indians were present at the birth of one McEachron baby.  When the child was born, the Indians took the baby outside and tossed it to one another, leaving the McEachrons to wonder whether they would get their child back safely.  They did.

One man mentioned that his family home in New York State was on the national registry of Underground Railroad stations.  Every plank road, every community and crossroads, has stories to share–and some are better than fiction.

As to the question of the right-of-way, the more heavily laden wagon stayed on the planks, while the lighter wagon would pull onto the dirt lane.  But I bet that somewhere along those many miles of plank roads, there’s a story of how two men wrestled for the right-of-way.  Let us know, please, if you uncover such a tale.

Midsummer Eve: Keeping the Fires of Cornwall

During my Valparaiso University semester abroad, in Cornwall I enjoyed reading by the hearth in the youth hostel, hiking along the cliffs, and watching the sea.  I remember standing at Land’s End looking out over the Atlantic Ocean, thinking about the many emigrants who had watched their homeland fade into a gray haze of sea and sky.

I did not know then that my sister Emily and I would write about the Cornish settlers of our own Wisconsin community.  In the tree-shaded Yorkville Methodist cemetery, the pale weathered stones of the pioneers are scattered among the sharp granite markers of their descendants.

In the Plank Road days, Cornish settlers must have sought ways to connect the old ways with the new.  Along with telling stories of the old country, they shared the tastes of home–pasties every day and saffron cake on special occasions–and worshiped together at the Methodist “mud chapel,” singing hymns and carols known for generations.

Other traditions must have persisted as well.  There are no cliffs in Yorkville, so on Midsummer Eve the Cornish pioneers were never to see “a chain of fires on the clifftops stretching all along the seacoast,”  as Gran Mather described the custom to Florence.  Yet lighting a bonfire on June 23 and sharing a ritual for prosperity in the coming year would be one way of honoring the old ways and helping the young people to appreciate the place they knew “only through stories and songs, the land where others shared in the keeping of the fires.”

By the end of the nineteenth century, such Midsummer traditions had died out even in Cornwall, but in the 1920s various organizations were formed to preserve the Cornish heritage.  The motto of the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies is “Cuntelleugh an brewyon us gesys na vo kellys travyth” (Gather up the fragments that are left that nothing be lost).  You can learn more about Midsummer Eve fires and other Cornish customs at the Federation website: <http://www.oldcornwall.org/>

The Plank Road Summer Resources for Teachers include materials related to immigration and Cornish traditions provided by the Wisconsin historic site of Pendarvis.