Reprinted from the Oregonian Clackamas County Weekly

by POLLY CAMPBELL
SPECIAL TO THE OREGONIAN

AURORA --
The sun filters through the slats and cracks in the walls of the barn where Callum Cleary works.

The 9-year-old pulls a bucksaw through a piece of wood, a small limb about the diameter of an ear of corn.

It's slow going. The teeth of the saw catch in the fibers of the wood, and despite the weight of his classmates, two of whom sit on the sawhorse to hold the wood in place, the limb shifts with every pull of the saw.

"Sawing by yourself is a lot of work," Callum said.

For Callum and the other fourth-graders from Terra Linda Elementary School in Cedar Mill, cutting firewood, baking bread, dipping candles and taking on other chores recently at the Stauffer-Will Farm also were part of a hands-on history lesson.

More than 2,500 students from schools throughout the Northwest visit the farm near Aurora each spring to learn what life was like for the people who lived on the property more than a century ago, said Joan Jacobs, executive director of the Old Aurora Colony Museum.

For most Oregon students, the trip to the farm comes at the end of their classroom studies about the Oregon Trail and pioneer life.

The homestead, built by John Stauffer for his wife and 10 children in the late 1860s, was once part of the Aurora Colony, the communal society that settled in the region in 1856.

The farmhouse and outbuildings, originally part of a 360-acre parcel, are owned and operated by the Aurora Colony Historical Society, which has been conducting the school programs at the site since 1987.

The program is the brainchild of Patrick Harris, the former Old Aurora Colony museum director who thought children would better understand the realities of pioneer life through hands-on lessons.

The lessons taught at the farm and in the classroom follow a formal curriculum that was developed by teachers and staff members in 1999 in accordance with Oregon's education benchmarks.

Comprehensive program

Although there are dozens of living-history farms operating in the United States, and several in Oregon, the Stauffer-Will Farm offers one of the most comprehensive school programs in the state, said Ellen McCloskey, a historical society volunteer who was instrumental in developing the program in the early 1990s.

About 60 students a day visit the farm when it's open between mid-March and the first week in June. Recent visitors included classes from Eugene, Stayton, Hillsboro, Clackamas, Gresham, and Washougal, Wash.

While baking the bread in the original farmhouse, constructed of hand-hewn logs, or sawing wood in the barn, the students hear about what life was like for the children who grew up on the land.

"We always hear about why people came to Oregon and about their journey," said Erica Chiotti, a Terra Linda teacher who has been bringing her students to the farm for several years. "This is pioneer life ini action and what life was like when they got here."

The field trip is a way to reinforce the lessons taught in textbooks and classroom projects, said Tom Adkins, a Terra Linda teacher. For the students the lessons of farm life become real and memorable. The fourth-graders can relate more to what people experienced, he said.

Thomas Hady, 9, said he doesn't think he would have liked life in the colony.

"There are too many chores and no electricity," he said.

He said he learned several things during the field trip, such as "the window in the barn was for flinging manure through."

Although Hady's 19th-century counterpart would have attended school, the young colonists also would have spent hours each day doing chores before and after school, said Royann Lund, a farm volunteer from Canby.

She is one of two dozen trained volunteers who take turns teaching the students at the farm. The volunteers wear period clothing during their sessions.

"One of the things we try to do," Lund said, "is help them (students) discover how much work life was back then and to give them a sense of where we came from."

The lessons at the farm become more powerful when they are connected to the children's lives today, said Linda Buchanan, a volunteer from Salem who talks about how children in the 1860s would have carded the wool for spinning instead of watching television or playing video games.

Jessie Turner, farm coordinator, thinks the lessons go even deeper.

"I hope the kids see what they are capable of,: Turner said. "It is so important for me that the children discover who they are by looking at who these people were before us."

Donations help cover expenses

Schools pay $6.50 per student to participate in the farm program. The fees cover some of the costs of the materials used during the sessions and aid in building maintenance.

Donors, fund-raisers and private contributions help cover the other maintenance and operating expenses of the school program.

Still, budget limitations restrict the hours of operation to four days a week in the spring and the program is offered only to fourth-graders, said Turner, one of two paid staff members.

The historical society is looking for ways to expand the program, although no decisions have been made regarding how the program would change or when those changes would occur, Jacobs said.

The farm spends most of the year in "hibernation," Turner said, though special events and tours are sometimes held on the property when the program is not in operation.

During the off-season, some of the farm volunteers help at other Aurora Colony Historical Society sites and events. Most return to the farm for the students each spring, Turner said.

Back