Friday, April 26, 2013

vintage Hopkinsville

Dan the tour guide


I walked into the museum at Hopkinsville to see the quilt show. The first question I was asked was where are you from? All the way from Georgia! I paid my $2 museum admission fee and was told that the quilts were displayed throughout the museum mixed in with all the historical artifacts. So I headed that way, but the little man at the desk asked me if I wanted a guided tour. I told him I was just going to walk around, but he was already getting up and heading my way, I said sure, a guided tour would be great. As we entered, I said I was just here to see the quilts and he paused a minute, said he said he gave a guided tour of the history of the area because he knew it so well, but he didn't know anything about quilts. So we took the tour together, I learned about the history of Hopkinsville and he learned about quilts.

He told me about the Trail of Tears that came through here and I told him that Chief Whitepath came from the area where I am from. I showed him the different quilt patterns. Soon he was asking the name of the quilts and commenting on the patterns. He recognized the Wedding Ring. He assumed that all the quilts were hand stitched, but I showed him the machine stitching on some and explained that they were still works of art and someone had to cut and sew all of those pieces into a pattern, the final machine quilting was a new addition to the craft.

He said the museum started out as a post office years ago and showed me the peepholes overhead the postal inspectors would use to monitor the mail sorting, making sure no one opened mail. The high ceilings made it a great place for a quilt show, as we walked along I read off the names of the quilts and he would ask, "Who made that one? Oh I know her!"

He showed me his picture on a wall featuring local veterans, he told of his time spent in Korea. I told him about my folks being in the service, my dad in Korea also. When we rounded one corner, he said, "I like that one! What is it called?" The Lone Star, always a striking pattern. This one was made in 1871. So I snapped his picture in front of it. Somehow I had forgotten to take any pictures the whole tour, sometimes it is just fun to look and learn. 

Dan the museum guide said he is 80 and has Parkinsons, but is fine as long as he has something to hold onto, and he is a volunteer museum guide for the fun of it, he likes to meet people and can be found at the museum daily 2:30 - 5. Thanks Dan for the tour! 

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