Birthdays and Beatrice

As the title suggests, it was Kent Wilson's birthday. In spite of this personal celebration, the Wilson's not only welcomed me in on their celebrations, but still took me around and showed me the sites (both circus and non-circus). 


The day began with one of Kent's favorite activities: driving his horse cart. I got the chance to go with him, and he took me on a tour of the area. 

Kent, one of his carts, and two of his horses, Ace and Rex.

It was a beautiful day, the coolest it has been on my whole trip, and I got a little taste of what it might have been like for my main character living in Beatrice.  Dirt roads, 

corn fields, 

open pasture, 

farmhouses. 

According to Kent, not much has changed since then, especially away from Main Street. 

After our ride, we returned to the house and got packed up for a picnic at Homestead National Monument. Although the log cabin on the property is not the original home that had been there, it is an original homesteading log cabin. The museum was small but very well laid out and, while it has no relevance to my novel, it was great to learn more about this important period in our history. Plus, to see an actual homestead was pretty nifty (Oregon Trail, anyone?) In fact, apparently there are still wagon ruts out in some of the fields around here from the original Oregon Trail, which have their own following: the locals call them "Rut Nuts." They're kind of like Dead Heads or Phish Heads, but instead of following jam bands around, they follow early pioneers. 






After the museum, I checked out the cabin, which, as would be expected, is tiny, although perhaps even tinier than I would have imagined. Inside we found a volunteer dressed in pioneer garb (except for her anachronistic nose ring) and she gave us a butter churning demonstration, using a contraption that looked like a large, glass mason jar on the bottom and an old school hand mixer on the top. I turned it a few times but my modern attention span didn't allow me to stick around long enough to make butter.

Little house on the prairie, or one of them anyway

After the Homestead, we headed over to Fairbury, a town about a half hour drive away that served as a home for the Campbell Brothers Circus. Although this circus was prominent during an earlier time period than I'm interested (more around the mid-late 1800s), I figured it would be helpful to check out more local information about the circus. The museum was rather quirky, as it was housed in an old school building. Each of the rooms still closely resemble classrooms, but instead of desks and chalkboards, they're each packed full of objects. Aside from their archival labels, there's really little explanation to the historical context of each artifact. What results is a kind of hodge podge feel, but a place that is full of history and some pretty amazing displays all the same. Also, it's pretty rare to find a museum where what you see is what you get. Usually, museum goers only see at best a tenth of a museum's collection: in Fairbury, it's more like 90%.


Once I explained my interest in the museum, the man working there was eager to show me their circus collection, which, he admitted is rather small. However, he gave me free license to look through all their files of articles relating to circus information, and I learned a great deal from them. They had quite a number of letters from people who had seen the circus back in the early 1900s, which were very helpful. He also offered to open up the museum for me on Monday or Tuesday if I wanted more access, even though they're only open on Saturday and Sunday. Just more examples of the open, welcoming nature I have been encountering through the Midwest. 

Some of the Offerings of the Museum, Circus-Related and Otherwise:

Clown Shoes

Psychologist's office, or Salvador Dali's fainting couch perhaps (re: numerous clocks)

 Beautiful collection of 1920s dresses

Awwww baby lion!

Ahh! Terrifying!

Side note: this apparently was found hidden away in someone's attic. The family considered burning it to hide the shame they felt at the discovery, but instead donated it to the museum to educate the people of the area to the apparent presence of the Ku Klux Klan in the region's history

After spending quite a long time in the circus, the Wilsons and I bid our farewells to Fairbury, and headed back to their home in Beatrice. There we indulged in a delicious birthday dinner of BBQ pork chops, warm German potato salad, fresh sweet corn, Franzia wine, and a chocolate zucchini cake for dessert. After dinner, they showed me their slideshow from their trip to Peru, which gave us all a chance to digest a bit from the feast, before we said our goodnights. All in all, a pretty great day.