Hands on History enthralls kids

Five-year-old Ernie Goettlich carefully placed the needle through cloth and pulled it through just as kids in 19th century America did.

He then helped volunteer Terri Earl fold the piece of cloth into the formation of a flower. Then he sewed it onto a colored piece of paper as his nearly 2-year-old brother, Wesley, looked on.

He had a colorful decoration to take home with him.

The exhibit on traditional sewing was one of more than 40 displays at Hands on History, the annual fundraiser and educational program put on by the H. Earl and Margaret Turner Clack Memorial Museum Foundation Saturday.

The museum was packed with young people as the displays that included an exhibit on how people from earlier ages washed their clothes and dried them out on hand-operated wringers. Gadgets called clothespins intrigued many young people as they hung their clothes on clotheslines.

Landon Kinsella, 5, proudly sporting a necklace he obtained at the mock tea party that Hands on History sponsored, was intrigued by an old-fashioned typewriter. He and a group of others tried to figure out just what it was used for and how you got the paper in the typewriter to type on it.

"There's the back space," he said, happy that he had found the magic key.

But the keys kept jamming, and he had to figure out how to get them untangled.

Kenny Shellenberger, 11, said he was glad to learn how people typed before computers, but he knew that people weren't about to switch back to typewriters.

"With computers, you can get information," he said.

At another table, kids were learning how to create and enjoy playdough.

"I didn't know playdough was history," said one older man as he walked by the exhibit.