Organizers of the New Bethel Heritage Festival are hoping for beautiful weather Saturday when volunteers celebrate local history.
The festival will take place, rain or shine, said Karen Almeter, New Bethel Preservation Association founder.
The fifth annual festival is set for 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, May 11, at the New Bethel School, just west of Anderson.
Attendees at the family-friendly, free event will have the opportunity to see a number of demonstrators show how to do a number of chores the old-fashioned way.
The preservation association hosts the annual event to show and preserve the heritage of the school, and to raise money for the school's restoration. The building served as a school from 1915 to 1948. Volunteers have been working hard over the past few years to completely restore the old schoolhouse and just recently finished the new floor.
On Saturday, demonstrators will be located outside. In case of rain, organizers will set up tents and have demonstrators located under the tents, while others will move inside.
Organizers have enlisted the help of a banjo maker as one of the demonstrators. Doug Crane of Joplin gives demonstrations at History Alley in Neosho and has built more than 100 banjos.
Janet Mote, who sews on a treadle sewing machine and a hand-crank machine, will return this year.
New this year are Granby residents June Freund, broom maker, and her husband Michael, blacksmith.
Other demonstrators will show how to create pottery, hand-saw logs, cook in a Dutch oven, hand-pump water, wash laundry on a washboard, spin and hand quilt.
Younger children will be able to take rides on miniature horses, a return from last year.
Historic craft demonstrations include hand-sawing logs, hand quilting, spinning, Dutch-oven cooking and wash-tub laundry.
Volunteers are busy finishing several old-fashioned items that will be for sale on that Saturday. "The General Store," located inside the schoolhouse, will offer handmade aprons and sunbonnets, rag dolls, paper dolls, old-time toys and games, rag rugs, lye soap, beeswax candles, jams and baked goods, Almeter said.
Volunteers, including two home-school families, have been working to hoe, stake, pick rocks and plant a vegetable garden. Almeter decided to call the effort a "Victory Garden," which was part of a World War II campaign to feed the populace and soldiers. Almeter plans to put up a gutter on the back side of the school's roof with a downspout that will fill rain barrels. That rainwater then will be used to water the garden, she said. Those who attend Saturday's New Bethel Heritage Festival will have the chance to enjoy the beginnings of the garden and see the work that has been completed.
"His Table" will offer pulled pork and a chicken dinner this year on a donation basis. Musicians will entertain with bluegrass music.
The New Bethel School is located three miles west of Anderson on F Highway and north three-fourths of a mile on New Bethel Road. For more information, call 417-845-6855.
General News on 05/09/2019