Thousands pour into Springs Folk Festival over weekend
Springs Folk Fest held this past Friday and Saturday brought more than 8,300 people to the festival grounds for ancestral demonstrations, juried crafts and a wide selection of foods.
According to Harriet Berg, publicist for the festival, school buses arrived with students of all ages and one elementary school sent the whole school to learn the history of times past. She related that festival-goers arrived from all over the United States and many returned there because they had attended with their grandparents years ago.
"They enjoyed the many demonstrations with hands-on art in weaving, building, petting the sheep, and watching the electric model train demonstration in the Springs Museum," she said.
Beth Page, Berg's daughter, has been volunteering at the festival for as long as she can remember and for several years now, she has demonstrated flax processing. Her son Peter Page, 13, was helping as well. In Colonial times long before industrialized clothing making, the task of flax processing was how clothing was made for early settlers up until the early to mid-1800s when cotton was imported and brought in locally through the railroad, said Page.
To take flax to linen, the whole process includes being rippled, rhetted, broken, scutched, heckled and spun. Page, along with Jennifer Hurl, and Sue Elkins as the spinner demonstrated the tedious process for visitors. Once the product was spun, then those fibers were taken to the weaver, who was a very important person in the community and who would weave the end product into clothing throughout the winter months, said Page.
For Todd and Sara Wetzel, and their two daughters, Hannah, 7, and Eleanor, 5, all of Upper Turkeyfoot Township, the Springs Folk Festival meant an educational family trip on Friday and taking some time to find out about flax processing was all part of the adventure.
"We love how all the craft people and demonstrators are friendly and invite us into whatever they are doing," said Sara Wetzel. "Flax processing is just one of the many historical and traditional demonstrations we enjoyed."
The Byler family, of Salisbury, had the same thoughts as the Wetzels. Jon and Marcelle Byler brought their child Alice, 2, along with Hannah Byler's children Amelia, 7, and Leo, 4, who were all petting sheep at the wool processing area. Amanda Stewart, of Tunnelton, West Virginia, and Sarah Beamer of Morgantown, West Virginia, work jointly together at the wool processing area and know each other through work at West Virginia University.
Stewart, a scientist at West Virginia University, is passionate about spinning wool. She calls it "addictive."
"For me, spinning connects me back to an old part of myself," said Stewart. "You get better with practice and it can be very relaxing until something goes wrong but you learn how to problem solve. People back in those days were not dumb people. They devised ways to make things. Women, however, were not usually allowed to create so the weavers in the village were men. Even the tapestries in Europe were made by men because men were considered to be the artists."
While the flax and wool processing were busy places at the festival, many were stopping by the oven-baked bread booth for a piece of baked bread with butter and apple butter. Visitors could buy a piece of bread or a whole loaf of white or wheat bread.
According to Bernard Orendorf, who along with Alice Orendorf, and Rachel Miller, and a crew of others, baked homemade bread in an outdoor oven, the festival was busy both days. They baked about 2,000 loaves, which was over 100 batches done during the two-day period, and the crew sold out at the end of the day Saturday. Johnny Martin's sauerkraut crew used 8,000 pounds of local cabbage and also sold out at the end of the festival.
"The air turned crisp later in the day Friday," said Berg, "but smiling people dressed for the occasion and we were happy there was no rain, snow or mud."
This article originally appeared on The Daily American: Thousands pour into Springs Folk Festival over weekend
