Check out some of the fun activities planned for this week!
Keeping the Bugs Out is what’s happening at Sauder Village! Bugs beyond counting plagued and sickened our forebears, as they do us. More flies hatch in a day than there are humans on this planet! Today we have spray cans and exterminators, but our ancestors had little more than folklore and ingenuity. These weeks the focus is on some common pests and the ways our ancestors dealt with them.
Curriculum met with Keeping the Bugs Out
Learn how our ancestors dealt with maddening mosquitos in the Lauber Settlement (#22 on the Village map) in 1834. Mosquitos in the Great Black Swamp gave those early settlers a type of malaria called ague. Find out more about this disease and what techniques they had to help them from the droves of mosquitos that descended upon them.
Discover the numerous pesky pantry pests Anna Witmer Roth dealt with in 1850 and what she used to deter them (#24 on the Village map). Pantry weevils in flour and ants are the two types of pests talked about here. Pantry weevils can spoil freshly milled flour – one of the main staples of Anna’s kitchen. See what the weevils look like, how they reproduce, and the consequences of infestations.
The house mouse is the most commonly encountered of all rodents. Mice are full of disease – some of these diseases can be fatal – as well as destroying homes as they eat and chew anything! There are 4400 mousetrap patents recorded at the U.S. Patent office, more than any other invention!! Take a look at all the different things Mrs. Stuckey had available to rid her home of these revolting rodents in 1875 (#27 on the Village map).
House flies are the most common insect on the earth and are able to transmit disease that they pick up on their hairy legs. See how Mrs. Grime dealt with these annoying flies in her home and around her family’s farm in the 1920s (#51 on the Village map). Creative ways for catching them will be on display!
Got Bugs? The Stotzer Hardware (#37 on the Village map) has a variety of products available to help you rid your 1920 home from bedbugs to cockroaches! Stop on by and check it out!
Dr. McGuffin’s Office has many new inventions to help care for his patients. Stop by the doctor’s office – no appointment needed – to see the latest medical devices (#32 on the Village map)!
Sanitation was the word of the decade in the 1920’s and Okuley’s Barbershop (#38 on the Village map) had a number of ways to improve their profession. Do not forget to check out the lice comb!