Historic Nauvoo sites

After St. Louis, phase 2 of our vacation was Historic Nauvoo Illinois - a reconstructed area of the city that the Mormons built in the 1840s. This was the location that was abandoned when they moved to Utah and finally got out of reach of mob activity that had been following them for more than 20 years, beginning in New York. Since then, the LDS Church has returned to the area to repurchase as much of the original property as it can, and rebuild and/or restore many of the original buildings. It's a great location for learning about every-day life in the 1800s, even if you're not Mormon.

We started our Nauvoo stay with an evening "country fair" with lots of games and activities. We didn't get around to see much of it because our girls got so occupied with the folk dancing. Great fun! A couple of days later, we went through a number of businesses - print shop, post office, tin shop, gun shop (the repeating-rifle Brownings themselves, no less), bakery, brickyard, and the school. There were a few that we missed, like the blacksmith shop because it was over 100 degrees out and there was no AC there.

They also have the Family Living Center, where they demonstrate various things that maybe didn't warrant an entire location of their own (such as the blacksmith shop). They had various old fashioned toys - dishes, dolls, and blocks. Our kids and their cousins had a great time with those. They talked about baking in the home in brick ovens, weaving and other sewing techniques, making barrels, and making rope.

Sunny got her 18-year-old second cousin CL to dance the Irish jig with her at the fair.

Posy and her cousin AK participated in a circle dance.

Sunny in a game of catch, where you cross the two sticks to throw the ring to your partner, who tries to catch it with their sticks. 

Dad helping with the crosscut saw. Two of their cousins (with their dad) were at the other end of the saw. 

Learning to make rope - turn the wheel and the three strands twist together.

Examining a tray of the letters used to make typeface to print something. They were TEENY! And this is where we get "upper case" and "lower case" - because of the actual cases to store the letters when they're not in use.

A discussion about "running water" at the post office, which also included a general store. Fill your buckets and RUN it home. Har har.

Neither of our girls were tall enough to get the buckets off the floor when they had the yoke on their shoulders properly.

The minute we walked into the schoolroom, Sunny picked up the slate and started writing letters on it. Maybe I need to get a few of them for our school? (And really, I loved it when the tour guide asked her what grade she's in, and she said that she's homeschooled and starting 1st grade when we got home from the trip. The guide was very supportive in saying how lucky she is that our family has school at home.)

Her favorite letter M.

Even Birdie got into the slate action.