LIVERMORE — Visitors will have the chance to meet “Aunt Clara,” “Mercy Lovejoy” and “Patty Washburn” at the Washburn-Norlands Living History Center’s Strawberry Festival on Saturday, June 25.
Willi Irish, director of interpretation and training, is the face behind the characters. She recently marked her 40th year bringing 18th and 19th century history to life for visitors.
Irish was recruited in the early 1970s by Norlands’ founder Billie Gammon to learn how to help visitors understand everyday life on a Maine farm in 1870.
Irish shared Gammon’s vision for the 445 acre Washburn estate as a place where the public could experience rural life in the past and learn about the Washburn family. She learned “living history” techniques, in which participants took part in the farm chores and housework as practiced 150 years ago, and interpreters assumed the dress and manners of the period.
She was inspired to carefully record the many stories told by her father and older relatives who had come into regular contact with the Washburns and their neighbors. She uses these stories to bring to life the actual 19th-century characters she portrays. One of the personas Irish takes on at the Norlands is “Aunt Clara,” based on her great-great aunt, Clara Boothby Howard.
Among Irish’s favorite programs offered to visitors at the Norlands is the schoolhouse experience.
“It’s the most real. I look out the windows of the one-room school and see the same scene the schoolmistress did in 1870, and we are using the same objects and methods she did 150 years ago,” she said.
Would she give up her 21st-century conveniences in order to live in the era she portrays?
“No, I’m very fond of my modern kitchen and bathroom,” she answered without hesitation.
The festival runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Cost is $10 for adults, $6 for ages 12 and younger and $25 for families.
FMI: www.norlands.org.
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