Textile Traditions on Independence Day
This past weekend, we went out to our favorite Hill Country town, Rocksprings, for the re-dedication ceremony for the newly restored 1891 county courthouse. Edwards County has a strong history of sheep and angora goat ranching, and traces of it were evident in the celebration.
I would love to put captions on these pictures, but apparently WordPress has changed formats again, and I cannot figure it out. I cannot even find a help button. I can’t see a “preview” button either, so I can’t see if the post looks okay.
So! I will just have to give you information totally removed from its picture, and hope you can figure it out.
If you look at the arched doorway of the courthouse, you might notice two big lumps, one on each side. These were bags of mohair and wool! It is not every keynote speaker who shares the stage with bags of fibers.
When it came time for the ribbon cutting, some of the officials used “tijeras” or the old hand-held shears. If you look at the picture of just two of the men, you can also see the baling hook on top of the wool bag.
In the audience I saw a woman in a beautiful crocheted dress. It turned out that she was this year’s Old Settlers Queen, and the dress was made in 1934 (I’m pretty sure) for one of her ancestors, a great-aunt or great-grandmother. I was hoping to get to talk to her about it, but she was busy being on her parade float so I didn’t get a chance. The dress looked to be made of cotton, and it had lovely drape. It looked so fresh and stylish; it was the perfect summer dress.
The rest of the day was fun too, as small town celebrations usually are. And it will all be covered in the best small town newspaper ever – the Texas Mohair Weekly!
I was wrong about WordPress changing formats – I just went into “new posts” some way other than what I have always done before. I found my old familiar way afterward. Thank goodness.
This looks like a great celebration–so bound up in tradition. That crocheted dress is spectacular! And, yes, there couldn’t be a better name for a newspaper to feature in your blog!!
It is a wonderful community and I love spending time there.
One of the great things they did at the re-dedication ceremony was recognize all the road crew guys that worked on the courthouse restoration – during a drought, the guys can’t work on the roads (most of the county roads are dirt), so the county judge asked the state if they could work on the courthouse instead, so they would still have a paycheck. They had to dig down 7 feet in the limestone to stabilize the foundations. It was so wonderful to see them be recognized along with the VIPs.
Thank you for the sharing!!! I love such buildings……they seem to weather the passing of time so beautifully!!! That crochet dress is totally amazing!!! Wonderful post!!!!!!!!!!
That building has been through so much – the interior burned up in 1897, only 6 years after it was built. Then a terrible tornado went through in 1927 and took off the roof, and destroyed everything inside again. They did a great job on the restoration and matched the original colors and ceiling and even the courtroom benches. But they also added an elevator and heating and AC. It is great to see it made useful again.
A big “thumbs up” on that one!!!!
I was struck by the gorgeous limestone building. I think that’s a characteristic of Texas hill country. I didn’t know about the angora stuff. Is that still a viable industry there? As to your photo captions, in my WP theme I can add captions through the media library for each picture. Maybe you can do that with your theme as well.
As to the captions, I couldn’t even get to my media library from where I was. I only saw a little area that said “Create gallery,” and then I could drag and drop from my computer into that box. All the pictures showed up, but with only an X to delete, not the usual little pencil button for editing.
When I went in my usual way – Dashboard/Posts/New Post – I saw the screen I’m more familiar with, with the “Add Media” button. I have no idea what I clicked on that brought me to the more streamlined screen I was on last night. Oh well. It’s just a blog. 🙂
There are still some people raising angoras, but it has been slowly decreasing since its heyday in the 50s. Synthetic fabrics killed the market, a government subsidy went away in 1995 (I think), and it’s hard to find shearers. There’s not much else you can do with the land out there, but meat goats have been a solution – they don’t have to be sheared, and there’s a huge global market. Another thing people do is manage their land for wildlife – they can have hunters, birders, and photographers as paid guests. I would guess that most landowners ranch and manage wildlife too, whatever they can do to get by.
Edwards County is the size of Connecticut, but has only 3000 fulltime residents! They have kept a strong sense of community, but they are also very kind and welcoming.
I love to visit small towns, especially the local coffee shop where we enjoy listening to the regulars. A couple of times the regulars caught on that we were strangers and put on quite a show, talking to each other and spreading it pretty thick,loud enough for us to hear. We caught on quickly and we all had a good laugh.
I get to the place your talking about when I use the iPad app with out being signed into my blog. By pressing the me I then can say view admin which allows me to sign in and write a post where one can do more with photos ect. Hope this makes sense.
I think I went in from my home page, where it shows my blog title and has a button “add a new post.” And I usually go in from the dashboard. And when I tried it again, to see what I did last time, this time I saw a very subtle “add media” button and it looks like it would have all the menus I am used to there. It’s good to try something new but I am so used to having my favorite programs change without warning (and if you ask me, without reason), that I just assumed that that had happened without checking around more.