Memorial Day & Eaton Day and the PIES are almost here!

Rain, Rain, Go away… come again any day but Memorial Day Monday also known as Eaton Day!  

The usual Eaton Day (Memorial Day Monday) plans are firming up and some new ideas are going to be put together.

The “Day” that runs from 9 am until 3 pm is an opportunity for everyone to grab a pie or a gift or arummage sale item to bring home.  This year we are adding more items to our “Museum Gift Shop” and more books to our vast new local history book selections.

A special addition to the fun this year will be a historic reproduction tin sale, used book sale and of course, our “what not” museum rummage sale.  These little additions should prove to be fun to look through and any purchases will of course go to helping the museum fund.

This spring the Friends of the Old Town of the Old Town of Eaton Museum became an official 501 charity, this will allow the group to look for grants and also allow museum supporters to donate tax-deductible money to the cause. Few people realize the cost of keeping a little museum going!

This year’s Pie Sale will feature a number of locally grown fruits and a good variety of local favorites made by our local pie bakers and volunteers.  So come out get a pie and enjoy a special piece of our local history.  The Museum’s cookbooks that are for sale, list a number of local recipes handed down from local bakers of the past.

If you have relatives or friends from the area and need a Christmas Present…come down and pick something up in our gift area. We even have gifts for your cats and a coloring book for kids!!  This year we will have our 2018 Historic Eaton Calendar available early.. it comes with an envelope that allows you to mail it out.

Our new Friends of the Old Town Museum Facebook and Internet pages will be up shortly and you can learn more on everything there! Right now you can go to our Old Town of Museum Facebook page!  For information or to make a donation you can email backstreetmary@yahoo.com.

The Holidays in the Old Town of Eaton and a "Thank You".

Morse House

First I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who donated cans to our museum can drive…. thanks…it was a success. Another thank-you to the helpers – Michele Kelly, Barb Keough, Jen Caloia, Chris Klein and a special thank you to Steve Brown for hosting us.

The season is upon us… yes that time of year.  I often get questions on what the “Holidays” would have been like in the old days of Eaton when it was just a fledgling community with log or stone buildings and no access to a shopping center... except perhaps traveling to market in Albany one hundred miles away!.

So I thought on the information I had in my archives and came up with this…Old Town Eaton as we call it was not far removed in tradition from its home base of Sherburne & Natick, Massachusetts.   In her book Old Town Folks author Harriet Beecher Stowe talks about the family of Deacon Badger. Badger was really a Bigelow who was her husbands Grandfather and her own relation via the Stowe family ties. This couple in essence is the Grandfather and Great Aunt or relative of a number of the Eaton settlers at that time including Joseph Morse’s wife Eunice Bigelow, the Morse’s and the Stowe’s and others.  The book gives us insight into the family life and “Holiday” baking.

From Old Town Folks

On holiday food: “The pie is an English institution, which, planted on American soil, forthwith ran rampant and burst forth into an untold variety of species. Not merely the old traditional mince pie, but a thousand strictly American seedlings from those main institutions to new uses. Pumpkin pies, cranberry pies, peach pies, huckleberry pies, cherry pies, green-currant pies, pear pies, plum and custard pies, apple pies, Marlborough-pudding pies, pies of fanciful flutings and architectural strips laid across and around and otherwise varied, assisted the boundless fertility of the mind, when once let loose in a given direction.”

Morse House Kitchen

The piece goes on to describe hundreds of pies put into an open back room that allowed them to freeze an be bought out throughout the holiday season and sometimes up until April.”

* I guess this inspired our traditional Thanksgiving Pie Sale.

One of Eaton’s great little stories is of a preacher who was so long winded that in the “Holiday Season”  the women at the service would be totally unnerved by his dragging the “Holiday” sermon on and on while their wood-fired ovens could be burning the food set for the holiday dinner.

If any of us can picture cooking the family feast over a wood fire or in a wood fired Brick oven?

 Since many of the residents were relations I am sure you can picture large family gatherings and a bill of fare that was gathered from the collective families larder. A long cry from today’s  shopping at Price Chopper or Wegman’s.

Parades, Pies, Raffle Baskets, Memorial Day.....and another day in Eaton's 220 year history!

The week has finally ended, and what a week it was.  Last Sunday I was  pushed to set up for our event and bake a ton of pies until 2 or 3 in the morning.  Then at dawn it was out to finish setting up for our traditional Eaton Day event, which is held each Memorial Day Monday and celebrates Eaton’s history especially... its founding by Revolutionary War Soldiers and its many other veterans.

The day came together and the weather cooperated allowing us to enjoy hometown America at its best with friends, neighbors, and former residents.  Thank you to all who came out!

As a special tribute to its 20^th Anniversary and Eaton’s 220^th year I managed to finish a new history book that concentrates on the later years after 1850 in Eaton’s History and a remastered video of the day in 1995… parade and all.  To those who would like a copy you can go to Dougherty’s Pharmacy in Morrisvile and buy a copy or two and support the Old Town of Eaton Museum that made the day and event possible.

Our basket raffle was a success and the winners were Sharon Lloyd- cats, Kay Depuy - flowers, Karen Betz-history, and Barb Keough.  Barb won the wine basket (she put all her tickets in it I bet).

Thanks you to the Goodfriends, Pat Utter, Judy Oplinger, Mike Curtis, Cathy Nagle, and our special guest Tommy Hoe… You guys were great. Thank you to Jim Monahan for the use of the building and grounds!

Thank you to our history speakers Harry Riggall and Bob Betz... we are hoping to do special presentations on Wednesday nights in Eaton in the summer.

For all those who missed the grand finale ....cemetery tour…it was made especially memorable by a huge tree falling on the Morse graves…but luckily missing every stone.  It happened at a most fortuitous time… just before we toured the area! Whew!

As for me...the following morning was spent tearing down with Pat and Barb followed by working all week on ladders and chain saws so today… Sunday…I am resting… and taking this time to remind you to enjoy the day and remember to stop and smell the peonies… they are out!

Here is a clip from the video to make you smile!