Greenery Bazaar provides handmade alternatives to store bought Christmas decorations
Dec. 11—MANNINGTON — West Virginia frontier days were on display this weekend at The West Augusta Historical Society.
The society hosted its annual Greenery Bazaar outside the Wilson School Museum on Saturday, providing a place to buy handmade West Virginia pine Christmas decorations.
"This was started many, many years ago, it's all natural," Eva Yoho, member of the Historical Society, said. "It's all the fresh greens. We have tried to keep that tradition of the log cabin, of using all of the fresh greenery to keep that tradition going of what they did years ago. Now granted, we do add a few decorations onto them, but everything other than the decorations, everything is made of fresh pine. It's how they had to decorate years ago when they didn't have anything."
The Greenery Bazaar is a connection to the frontier days of the Price-Higgins cabin. However, sourcing the pine for the decorations is becoming a challenge. Yoho fears that most of the pine used previously has been all cut down, and tree nurseries aren't planting the tree like they used to. She said the historical society plans to grow their own shrubs so that in future years, they still have some to use.
Blue Spruce in particular has been hard to find. Yoho said a disease has spread through the plant population, turning the foliage brown. Cytospora Canker is a fungal disease that matches the symptoms described by Yoho. It attacks individual branches on the tree in a stair step fashion, killing the tree slowly until it needs to be cut down. Fungicides do not work on the disease.
Yoho hopes the Greenery Bazaar persists in spite of the pine shortage. It's a tradition that's been a part of Mannington for 35-40 years. The money from the bazaar is reinvested right into the Historical Society's museums, from the round barn, the train caboose located on the same grounds as the cabin and the Wilson School museum.
"It's wonderful for young people to come and see how things used to be," Carol Murphy, president of the West Coast Historical Society, said. "They don't realize without seeing some of this stuff how things have changed. I was surprised when this young group of kids came in, they were eighth grade West Virginia History students. They were amazed at what was over there and how it used to be in the pictures of the town back then."
The first museum was established in 1983, Rita Howe, Historical Society board member said.
"Some gentlemen got together and decided they wanted to preserve the history of Mannington," Howe said. "So people donated and that museum is full of stuff that has been donated. And we just kept going."
The Greenery Bazaar also provided a bit of a haven when the pandemic was in full bloom. Although the cabin was closed to prevent the transmission of COVID, the bazaar itself was still held outdoors on the grounds of the school. It provided a place for town residents to escape without endangering their health too much.
Although the bazaar has closed for the season, the historical society is working to add more events to its calendar as well. Murphy said they are working to bring back Farm Day, and she especially looks forward to churning apple butter as part of the event. The historical society hopes it will be on the calendar for fall of 2024.
Reach Esteban at efernandez@timeswv.com
