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Page 25 text:
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Dressed in straw hats, Levis, boots, T- shirts and bandanas, they arrived in Toyo- tas, Datsuns and Pintos to restore a cabin built more than 100 years ago by people who traveled by horses and buggy and wore homespun clothes. More than 30 folklore graduate students and faculty members took their curiosity and inexperience to Woodburn last August on a sunny, humid Saturday morning. There they found the makings of an 1822 four-room log cabin numbered and stacked on an acre behind Dr. Lynwood Montell’s two-story white frame house. Ten hours later, many of the yellow pop- lar logs had been fitted together in a pen and a half (a side and a half), with Montell directing the operation. Architecture is one of Montell’s interests as well as a main topic in the folk art and technology course he teaches. “I’ve read a lot about it and I just thought it would be neat to do something like that myself,” the department head said. Last spring Montell bought the house and barn for $1,500 and began moving the disassembled planks, windows and logs from Monroe County. “T used every chance I had to rip the boards and roof, and I labeled everything and drew a corresponding sketch,” Mon- A SHOWER OF WOOD CHIPS BOMBARD Gary Davis as he notches a yellow poplar log in the restora- tion of an 1822 cabin. The graduate student also raised logs in the all-day project directed by Dr. Lynwood Montell, the cabin’s owner. ACCOMPANIED BY A GERMAN SHEPHERD NAMED CLEO, Dr. Lynwood Montell and crew pause at 9 a.m. for a group picture before 10 hours of house- tell said. His father and several students also helped strip the lumber and manhandle seven or eight truckloads of logs. Montell laid the concrete foundation and prepared the materials and tools for the late summer house-raising, which also attracted neigh- bors and church friends. Keith Byrd helped Montell begin the project and said the house-raising was eas- ier than the disassembling. AGE DOESN’T MATTER AT A HOUSE-RAISING because everyone contributes. Liz Harzoff photo- graphed much of the day’s work, and Willie Montell (Montell’s father) helped the students with technicali- ties such as chainsaws. raising. The crew included his family, folklore grad- uate students and faculty members, and neighbors from the Woodburn community where Montell lives. “It was a lot harder to take down because it was so dusty and the logs were pegged together,” the senior history and govern- ment major said. Byrd said he cut notches in the logs, helped fit them and worked to keep them straight. “Everyone was enthusiastic and it was a group effort,” he said. “It was a lot of people working together to re-create a house-raising.” Dr. Robert Teske, a new faculty mem- ber, said the house-raising was a good oc- casion to get to know graduate students. “We all got a feeling of pride by putting (continued on page 22)
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A NOTeH WN THE PAST cont. the cabin up. “I had read a lot about it but that was the first time I participated,” he said. “It was a good opportunity to get involved in mate- rial folk culture.” Gary Foster, a part-time graduate stu- dent, said he developed a respect for the house. “It almost had its own personality,” he said. “It didn’t look like much on the ground, but each log had a hole bored in it for a peg which didn’t fit any other one. The hole had been made by the first people who built the cabin and lived in it. We were giving it a new lease on life, like a reprieve from the dead.” Foster said the back-breaking manual work came in three stages. ‘First there was the lifting of a log,” he said. “Then higher poles were lifted with skid poles and ropes, and skid poles were used to raise the top logs. Tog by log, I had mentally constructed the house further than we did on the ground, but I think we got more done than I would have realistically expected.” Montell was a good foreman, according to the graduate student. “If something didn’t work, he worked around it,” Foster said. “And when he’d notch a log everyone would watch. I thought it was a lost art, but I guess it really isn’t.” Nana Farris of Henderson said she was impressed about the role women played. “The women weren't just watching or cooking,” she said. “They were carrying logs, reading tablets and climbing on logs. There was really no difference in abilities except for physical size. “I moved logs, sighted walls, consulted the plans to find what went where, braced, drove nails and took ample breaks.” She was pleased that Dr. Montell’s fam- ily and neighbors came as well as students and faculty. “Most of them had never met, but it didn’t inhibit them from working together and enjoying each other,” she said. “T remember how Dr. Montell’s father was overseeing the progress of the house and kept talking to one girl who was driv- ing nails,” Miss Farris said. “He’d walk around and ask others if they’d seen ‘that New Jersey girl hammer nails.’ ” The frayed and soiled legal pad of sketches was misplaced three times. “Everything would shut down and every- body would look for it,” she said. “There were a few moments of panic until some- one found it underneath something.” Miss Farris said the dirty, sunburned and sweaty group didn’t goof off and was genuinely concerned about making sure things were done properly. TATTERED AND TEMPORARILY LOST THREE TIMES, a yellow legal pad of sketches of the original cabin was a necessary reference tool. Liz Harzoff, Charles Wright, Judith Schottenfeld, Nana Farris and Brad Montell consider the next step. “T realized that we have a totally differ- ent way of life from the people who first built that cabin,” she said. “Those people cooperated and interacted on a level not present in day-to-day contacts we have.” Although Miss Farris said she barely produced the energy to crawl to her car for the drive to Bowling Green, she savors a feeling of accomplishment from the house- raising. Dr. Montell was also pleased. “I was sur- prised at how much we got done and the fact that it got done so skillfully when they hadn't done that kind of work before,” he said. “Everyone worked; no one just watched.” And when the neighbors, students and faculty members dressed in straw hats, Le- vis, boots, T-shirts and bandanas drove away in their Toyotas, Datsuns and Pintos, Dr. Montell sneaked back to the construc- tion site three times. “I just stood and looked at it and had one super good feeling,” he said. Connie Holman @ LATE AFTERNOON SHADOWS befriended the house-raising crew as they lifted the last logs on the one pen they completed. Half of the other side of the saddlebag house was also completed that day by more than 40 participants. WINDOW INSTALLATION IN LOG CABINS is somewhat different from the modern method. Dr. Lynwood Montell, director of folk studies and cabin owner, directed his crew when the first window was fitted. The process proved tricky as the crew inserted it upside down and had to try again. House-raising
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