Wow - what a month. Cathy and I had made plans to travel to my sister Diane's in Illinois to bury our younger sister PJ's ashes in the family plot. However - along comes hurricane Irma. Since we're in Tennessee we figured it would have no effect on us but we got a call from my son, Stephen who lives in Spring Hill, Florida and wanted to bring his family up to weather the storm. We told him to "come on up - knowing that our other grandson Lil Kai would be with them. Ah - what a crowd. We had our youngest daughter, Kristy and her two kids (9 and 4 y/o) and Steve, Lisa and Kai (almost 3y/o) in a three bedroom house, thankfully with two bathrooms. It took them 18 hours to get out of Florida but by using back roads and keeping topped off with gas, when available, they made it. They stayed 4 days until it was relatively clear then started back down. Steve manages the Tampa Hooters Restaurant and wound up coordinating operations from here via the internet. By the time he got back, I believe Hooters was up and running. Thankfully all they lost was electric power but it was back on by the time they got home. The same day Steve and his family left to return to Florida, Cathy and I left for Illinois only we had an 8 hour drive and not 12-18 like Steve.
You could sure tell we were in Illinois rather than Tennessee - - - -
Soybeans and corn almost all the way. Going through Kentucky and southern Indiana we saw Tobacco growing also but once we got into Illinois that was it. We stayed with my Sister at her place in Troy for the duration. While we were there, Kinmundy, our old home town of 900 people- - - -
Well make that 800 - guess it's gotten smaller since I left for the Navy in Aug 1965. But it's still a neat little town. Anyway, they were holding the annual festival at Ingram's Log Cabin Village out by the C&EI Rail Road lake. Irma Ingram started this village back when I was a young lad going to high school with her son, Bob. In fact, I even got to number some of the logs on a cabin we found that was to be moved to Irma's location. All these cabins were found locally and some of them even had local descendants of the original cabin owners still living in the area.
This is Cathy taking a break in front of one of the early 1800's cabins. This one is special because the cabin guide was someone we had known all our lives and was a life-long Kinmundy resident, Eleanor Tate. Eleanor, dressing her part, is 81 years young and has been assisting with this festival for a long time. She is accompanied by my wife, Cathy and my Sister, Diane.
As you probably noticed in the first photo, this cabin has an added room on the right side which is a bedroom. In those early days that was quite an extravagance. The bedroom is pictured below.
The next three photos are of a doctors cabin where he practiced medicine on the local folk. He lived
where he worked like so many other artisans of that day did.
A few of his herbs, chemicals and medical supplies were kept on shelves. I particularly like that little brown jug sitting there just waiting to be tasted, maybe....
I wanted to show the corner detail on this cabin because almost all of these cabins have what is called "Dovetail" notching which locks the corners in once the a log is placed on top.
The pictures on the lighted table are of people who actually lived in this cabin back in the day. I like the white-wash on the walls and ceiling, it makes it a lot lighter inside compared to cabins without it.
The above three pics are of a cobblers cabin. He lived here with his wife and eight (8) children. You can see some cobbler tools around the cabin and interestingly, this cabin also had a stove. I was astounded when our guide mentioned the 8 kids until she pointed out the ladder to the loft area where the kids slept. I bet that could get to be crowded.
These three photos (above) are of a school house/church cabin. Doesn't look like there were many students or parishioners but back then, this area was very sparsely populated. A couple of things to note about this cabin - first it doesn't have a fireplace, it has a stove instead and was vented out above the blocked-in window. Also, the logs are rounded instead of being hand-hewed flat. This usually means that the corners are more than likely saddle notched where one log lays in a notch atop the next etc. Anyway - only one more to show - - -
I believe this was the only two-story cabin on the site. I remember back when I knew Bob, they were just reconstructing these and a two story was attempted. But due to a rotten base log, (unbeknownst to them) the 2nd story collapsed while under rebuild. That cabin was left unassembled and the good logs were recycled into other cabins. Ah - memories. And that pretty well covers the trip. We had a good time, renewed some old acquaintances and spent some time in the old home town.
