Forty-year Pioneer Education Program in jeopardy

by Arlene Kaiser

The Waterloo Area Historical Society is looking for a few good men and women who can help educate young people in the history of the pioneer experience of our forefathers, and have a really fun time doing it.

The experiences the school marms and masters, and the farm family have had over the years are priceless. Some children come in costume to completely immerse themselves in what it was like to be a child in the 1860s. We also see children who aren’t very interested until they begin shelling corn, making cornbread, or are asked to write on their slate with chalk in the one-room schoolhouse.

The Education Program has been a part of the Waterloo Farm and Dewey School Museums and the schools in Jackson, Ingham, Washtenaw and Livingston counties for more than 40 years.  To continue this program, we need people to portray teachers for Dewey School, Mrs. and Mr. Realy, and shepherds on the farm.

To qualify for these positions, you will need a love for educating young people. Also you should have the ability to find joy in the moment as children realize this is living history, and children actually lived this way in the 1860s.

At the museums, one boy declared he has “…lived, now that I have gone to the bathroom in an outhouse.” Some children are excited to sweep the floor or wash clothes on a washboard. Other students gain a new sense of history when told they would have to sleep on the floor of the loft as a “pioneer child.”

If this describes you, please contact Arlene at 517-392-3195 or email [email protected] for more information.

A volunteer washes clothes using a washboard at the Waterloo Farm Museum.

A student sweeps the steps and doorway of the Dewey School Museum.