Making paper quilts and learning about life in the 1800s are some of the experiences students have been taking away from Historical School Tours at Old Poway Park.
After students arrived for a tour April 2, they watched a video about train safety. Then Poway Recreation Leader Annette Aronoff explained the day’s activities — visiting the Nelson House and a one-room schoolhouse at the Heritage Museum, then taking a ride on a park train.
The Nelson House once belonged to the Nelson family, who were original settlers in Poway over 100 years ago, Aronoff told the students.
“There was no electricity, telephones or television then,” she said, comparing the schoolhouse to one they may have seen on the “Little House on the Prairie” TV show.
Students from Monterey Ridge Elementary School in 4S Ranch learned how the lives of pioneer children were different from their own. The school is among a dozen other private and public schools that signed up 740 students for the Historical School Tours in the park this spring.
“One of the things I loved about the park was when we got to pretend that we were going to school in 1875,” said Monterey Ridge Elementary School third-grader Himakhshi Goel after she took the tour. “I also really liked going to the Nelson House and seeing the piano that you play with your feet, and the wood-burning stove was really cool. The train ride was kind of bumpy, but I liked waving at random people while we rode.”
The students come for a “field trip” and spend the day experiencing local history, said Poway Historical and Memorial Society member Gwenmarie Hilleary.
This year, the Historical and Memorial Society is partnering with the Poway Friendship Quilt Guild to exhibit quilts in the park’s Nelson House and to teach children how to make a quilt with construction paper, Hilleary said. The students construct colorful quilt blocks by arranging them into patterns, tapping into their skills of geometry, design and planning, she said.
“This has been such a happy collaboration and the school kids are very engaged,” she said. “This hands-on activity is just good old fun.”
While students got crafty making their quilts around small tables, they could see historic quilts supplied by Friendship Quilt Guild . The quilts inspired the students and also showed them the creativity of women and the variety of materials they use to make quilts, Hilleary said.
Monterey Ridge third-grader Liam Prettyman said the quilts displayed at the Nelson House inspired him to make his paper quilt look like a Ninja star. Liam also liked seeing the toys the kids’ had played with years ago, and the way the piano inside the house’s parlor played by itself.
“I learned that the Nelson House was built by Niles Nelson and was moved from Garden Road to Old Poway Park in 1991 so visitors can see what life was like in the late 1800s,” Liam said. “The houses back then were not as big as some of the houses are now.”
Monterey Ridge third-grader Meera Rajasekharuni said she liked learning about history during the tour, particularly at the Nelson House because it showed how much everything has changed from the pioneer days.
“I learned about how women had to wake up really early to do chores and how they worked around the house, while the men and boys worked outside on the land,” Meera said.
As docent Julie Roeckl guided students through Nelson House she explained that pioneer families woke up early and started on daily chores. Boys would milk and feed the goats and cows, and the girls helped prepare meals and washed dishes and clothes with well water.
Instead of a refrigerator, families used an ice house outside. Clothes wringers and heavy irons heated on the stove were common tools to handwash clothes, Roeckl said. Butter was also made by hand by milking cows and scraping cream from the top of the container before putting it into a butter churner, she said.
The first known telephone in Poway was in 1927, Roeckl said, adding that the early phones had party lines so neighbors could listen in on the calls.
“After dinner, the family would go to the parlor and use oil lamps so they could read books and play board games,” she said.
Next on the tour was a visit to the one-room schoolhouse at the park’s museum.
Docent Naja Stephens, a member of the Poway Historical and Memorial Society, dressed in the style of a teacher from the late 1800s.
“The rules in pioneer schools were different,” Stephens told the students. “First, there was no talking. The only person who you could talk to would have been the teacher and you’d have to stand up to talk to her.”
Girls in particular didn’t have easy lives, she told the students, who sat in old-fashioned chairs.
“Girls had to get up early in the morning and help do the cooking,” she said. “They’d learn to sew and do embroidery, and wash clothes and clean the house. They’d also take care of younger children. Today you can be anything you want to be, but back then you were raised to be farmers’ wives. You could be a teacher at 16 years old but you couldn’t marry or have a boyfriend.”
Back then, Stephens said, the students walked, rode horses and hitched a ride on a buggy to get to school. Along with English and history, students were taught spelling, reading, arithmetic and recitation, she said.
“Look at your desks and you’ll see there’s a hole to put in ink,” she said. “You’d have an ink bottle with black ink and you would use a fountain pen to stick in the ink.”
Students compared the fountain pen, and slate boards with chalk and erasers, to their modern-day computers and Chromebooks.
Third-grader Grace Fuentebella said she was interested to learn about the old-fashioned reprimands in school, such as having students wear a dunce hat or put their nose in a circle on the chalkboard.
“I learned how life has changed over time,” Grace said. “They didn’t have electricity, and at school there were severe punishments that wouldn’t happen today.”
Before COVID, Monterey Ridge teacher Carrie Jennings said her students would learn about local history by taking a trip to Old Town San Diego but recently she decided to look for a local alternative. The Poway native said she had toured the Nelson House and Porter House on weekends and decided to check out the city of Poway’s historical offerings. The Historical School Tours at Old Poway Park are affordable at $4 per student, she added.
“This will help them make a lot of connections with what we learn in class,” Jennings said. “We want them to compare life back then to today, especially with the schools, and to understand the history of this area.”
The next opportunity for school tours at Old Poway Park will be in the fall, when Rendezvous School Tours are set for 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Oct. 2-3.
Students will be able to learn about Native American history, frontier encampments, the history of farming and gardening, and other local history during educational and interactive activities throughout the park. Hands-on lessons will include pottery making, making ropes, and churning butter.
For more information about registrations, call 858-668-4579 or email [email protected].
