Pioneers for a day - EOU History club helps fourth-graders step back in time

PIONEER MOM: EOU Associate History Professor Rebecca Hartman talks to Greenwood Elementary School fourth-graders while portraying a pioneer mother Tuesday at the Blue Mountain Crossing Oregon Trail Interpretive Park west of La Grande. The Observer/DICK MASON

This will mark the children’s second time change in five days. On Tuesday they set their watches back 160 years while meeting people who have never heard of light bulbs, not to mention digital clocks, cameras and Twitter.

No, the students did not awaken the dead on Halloween week, but they did meet members of EOU’s History Club who were portraying Oregon Trail pioneers. The children met them at the snow-covered Blue Mountain Crossing Oregon Trail Interpretive Park, a site where the generation gap was much larger than the 10- to 20-year age difference between the Greenwood and the EOU students.

“I didn’t think I would have this much fun,’’ said EOU student Jennifer Forbus.

Nicole Gannon, also a member of the Eastern History Club, concurred.

“It was a blast. We were integrating their world into ours,’’ the EOU student said.

Gannon and Forbus were joined by classmate Courtney Parsons and their club’s faculty adviser, Rebecca Hartman, an EOU history professor who also portrayed an Oregon Trail pioneer.

Hartman looked convincingly amazed when the Greenwood students talked to her about things like plastics and light bulbs, none of which Oregon Trail pioneers knew of. Hartman, when told of light bulbs, said they sounded to her like lightning in a ball.

When a child told Hartman that they have dollar stores in the 21st century, she said, “You have stores where you can buy dollars?’’

Hartman saw a student eating a banana and said, “You must be rich.’’ In the 1850s only the wealthy could afford tropical fruit.

The EOU professor also had fun talking to a girl who was wearing pants, telling her that she didn’t know girls could wear them.

Women faced more than stringent clothing dress requirements in the 1850s. They also had career limitations. Parsons made this clear when a Greenwood student asked if she intended to become a teacher.

“I have to get permission from my father first,’’ Parsons said.

Later, following her portrayal, Parsons explained that young women could not receive career training without permission from their fathers in the 1850s. Women who did teach were not allowed to continue once they got married.

The Greenwood fourth-graders ate old-time food cooked in a Dutch oven by the EOU students. The food prepared included biscuits, pork, bacon and a type of cornmeal mush.

“We didn’t think they would like it but they loved it,’’ Hartman said.

In addition to members of the EOU History Club, the Greenwood students met Dave Noble of Baker City who portrayed a mountain man.

Tuesday’s program was also put on with assistance from Arlene Blumton, Barb Wells, Dave Felley and Sara Biechler of the U.S. Forest Service.

Hartman and members of the EOU History Club hope to develop their characters more fully in the future and give additional presentations for school programs.

“This is an excellent way to reach out to the community,’’ Hartman said.