Comment EI-22109
Received or sent (printed as 4/18/2016)
I work at the Buckley Homestead County Park in Lake County, Indiana. I am an interpreter who works, primarily, with the school children who visit the park. My thoughts and feelings regarding the desecration of the park and Conway Observatory by the proposed railroad are, admittedly, subjective. Perhaps my comments will give some indication of the importance of Buckley Homestead to the entire region. April is the month of our Hands on Tours. Fourth grade school children get to experience washing wool, shorn from the sheep grazing right next to the wash tubs. This year, we have three Mama Ewes with four lambs scampering in the field. The children learn that a sweater did not originally come off a hangar at Walmart. They also get some knowledge of animal husbandry watching the lambs nurse and chase their Mamas around. All of this is discussed with the children in a way that engages their minds and imaginations. Located in the barn, there is a site that teaches the children how to mix up biscuits, cut them out and put them in the skillet for baking. They see how things were baked in a wood burning stove. The children also bring fresh vegetables and watch as those vegetables are turned into a stew for lunch and cooked over an open fire. When they all sit down to eat their lunches, they have food they had a hand in preparing the way our ancestors did. In the school house, they all sit in desks that are over one hundred years old. The school house is an exact replica of the one room schoolhouse that sat on the very spot, for many years. The school graduated its last class in 1922. Mrs. Catherine Buckley donated the property to Lake County Board of Education in 1858. The deed reads, in part “…said land being the same that the school house now stands on to have and to hold said half acre of land so long as it may be used for school purposes…” . Catherine Buckley, who was also deaf, could neither read nor write, so having her children educated was vitally important to her. While at the school house, the children are given the opportunity to try their hand at Spenserian writing, that beautiful, flowing script used in 1900. They also take part in an “orthographic competition”, which in modern parlance means spelling bee, using words from the 4th grade reader from the period. The log house, it’s not actually a “cabin” because it has four windows and a wood floor, was found while a home nearby was being demolished. It was under plaster and was one room of the house. Fortunately, the demolition crew understood what they found and took it apart with great care, numbering each log as they went. It was donated to Tri-Creek Historical Society, who, in turn, donated it Lake Co. Parks for Buckley Homestead. While not original to the homestead, it is original to the area and a beautiful example of early pioneer living. While at the log house, the children learn to sew a button on, perhaps what chinking is all about by actually chinking the old pig sty. Weather permitting; they may help plant the pioneer garden. Is this a popular program? Yes. We have teachers who come back year after year with their class. There are those that, having been told they can have only one field trip, choose to come to Buckley. One comment a child made this year was, “I thought this was a field trip. But I learned too much for it to be a field trip!” We even had a group of German exchange students this year. Normal attendance is 100 children a day, for all eleven days. May, September and October, we conduct school tours that are not the all-day affairs the Hands on Tours are, but the two hour tours give the children a hint of what life was like when the settlers first came to our area. Inner-city children, especially, do not have a clue that applesauce didn’t always come from a plastic container on the shelf at a grocery store, or that bacon came from a live, walking, eating, pooping, squealing animal. These children, from all over the surrounding area have the opportunity to see, hear, and yes, smell farm animals. Again, school groups literally come from near and far for these tours. Last year, we had a group of homeschoolers from the south side of Chicago come down for the tour. Bear with me yet for I need to talk a bit about the house, and my true love, the barn. The front section of the farm house was built in 1853. It has two main rooms, with a small room the Buckleys referred to as the birthing room. Also the root cellar is under this section. In 1916, the middle section was added and supplied the house with a kitchen, bathroom and two additional bedrooms upstairs. The very back room was updated to a modern kitchen in the later 1990s. In 1916, when Charles Buckley set out to build his new barn, since the original barn had burned down, his neighbors told him he couldn’t build such a barn because it would fall down! The barn is built with plank and truss construction which gives the upper barn a massive tall area. This allowed for open, easily accessible hay storage. The other unusual feature of the barn, it is actually called a “Bank Barn”, is that it is built into the side of a hill. This allowed the lower barn, which was used for milking the dairy herd, to stay warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. There are so many inventive ideas used in the barn to help make the work easier on the workers and much more efficient. I tell the children the barn has secrets that I eventually explain. It is the first barn of this style built in Lake County, Indiana. Not only has the barn stood, but this year is the 100th birthday for the barn! The Lake Co Park Dept. has planned a huge two day event to celebrate. I have not even touched on the many programs and festivals held here. Our recreation of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow is just one more example of the thousands of people who use this park during the year. We do four nights of the production, 10 shows a night, with thirty people for each showing. That’s 1,200 people. The tickets are always sold out the first day they go on sale. The Buckleys were innovators. From the design of the barn, to the skylights in the pig barn, to the conveyor belt in the granary, everything created helped set new progressive standards for farming. This is a heritage that cannot be lost to the greed of one person. Sincerely, Sara Pierce
Submitted by: Sara Pierce · Lowell, IN
The Board publishes this comment in its environmental-comment table for this proceeding. It is quoted here as printed; nothing is inferred from it, and it states the commenter's own position in their own words, not this record's.
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