The German School Museum, where Hermann's stuff goes to retire.

This museum is amazing. It's an old two story school house that is absolutely chock full of old stuff that Hermann residents have donated. I can't just see people cleaning out Granny's basement and saying, "What should we do with these ancient typewriters? We can't throw them away. Let's donate them to the museum!"



Full disclosure: this entry is totally haphazard. If you have actually been, or visit in the future, you will notice that I'm jumping all over the place from floor to floor and room to room. I have no excuse, nor is it a judgement on the museum's organization, because the folks here have done a fine job. It's just such a crazy mishmash of stuff and I felt like stirring it up.


Take away, take away, take away this ball and chain!


My source tells me this could be a Chandler and Price letterpress


arrowheads, collected by high school students if I recall correctly


weaving loom restored by the ladies craft group


Textile printing blocks


Crazy quilt


Illustration of the Grimm Fairy Tale "The Youth Who Went Forth To Learn What Fear Was." It's a good one, you should read it.


The old town switchboard.


As a chick, I wonder why leather hair curlers would be better than rag curlers. It seems like it would be hard to tie leather curlers, but I guess they're less likely to tangle.


There were several old dollhouses in the museum. Check out the tiny rugs in every room!


Hair wreaths. These are a kind of family tree. You can read more about them here.


The guts of the clock in the clock tower.


This quilt, reportedly an Underground Railroad code, had us captivated, trying to find the one block that is different than all the others that indicated that the house was "safe." Unfortunately, in researching for this blog, I've found that the idea of a "Quilt Code" is highly debatable and probably more folklore than truth. I hate it when that happens. Here is a book about it if you are interested in learning more: Facts and Fabrications: Unraveling the History of Quilts and Slavery: 8 Projects, 20 Blocks, First-Person Accounts


This is in a big room called the Children's Room, divided into smaller room scenes using old railings from the courthouse. More stuff from more Grannies' houses.


Someone please tell me that somewhere, there is a real two-story carosel. I'm willing to travel.


A few things from the music room




Clavichord. When we were in a room across the hall this mannequin kept startling me.

The rest of these are from the River Room, which is, unsurprisingly, devoted to river history in Hermann.














The German School Museum is open from April through October. Hours are 10-4 Tuesday through Saturday and 12-4 on Sunday. The museum is closed on Monday. Although the museum is closed from November through March, it opens when festivals are scheduled during those months.

Hermann Wurstfest

I took so many pictures in Hermann a couple weeks ago that I'm going to have to break this into two blogs. This week, Hermann Wurstfest, which is always the fourth weekend of March. We started out our day at the Whole Hog Sausage Breakfast. You can read about the Wursty goodness over at Pandora's Lunchbox.



Breakfast is held at the Hermann Firehouse, where they have a room with a bunch of cool old pumpers.



After breakfast we headed over to the Stone Hill Pavilion, where the day's festivities were just getting started. There was a accordion player playing the fanciest dern accordion I ever done saw. It was DIGITAL!



There was a sausage making demonstration by Ruff Acres Farm with sausage seasoning for sale. I've never heard of waterfowl sausage but they make a seasoning for it, along with deer and pork sausage.



Maybe someone can tell me about this fountain outside the Stone Hill Pavilion. Honest to God, I saw a lady dip her fingers and cross herself like it was holy water. We made up a Davinci Code-esque story about Hermann because the fountain had a metal A emblem on it, and later we got red A hand stamps for admittance to the festival events.





Onward to Hermannhof! There's a lovely view of the Hermannhof from the Stone Hill Pavilion. You can see the day started out snowy, but it quickly turned into a sunny and pleasant day with perfect temperatures for the amount of walking we did.



At Hermanhof, one of the employees pointed out these awesome carvings hanging from the ceiling, and said they are a kind of German shop sign. The first is for a locksmith, the second for a pub, the third for a millinery. If you know what these are called I would love to know, as my Google-fu is failing me.







Hermanhof also has a self-guided tour of the cellars, which totally reminded me of The Cask of Amontillado. (Craves, Caves, & Graves: Now with Literature!)







From Hermanhof we headed for the Wiener Dog Derby, which we were late for because we got sucked into the German School Museum (so full of awesome stuff it requires a separate post.) We finally found City Park and the wiener dogs just in time for the Cocktail (Wiener) Class.

READY!


SET! Hold on there Mister, not yet!


GO! No, go towards the finish line, puppies!


OK, GO!


We only stayed for the Cocktail and Frankfurt races and then it was time to head back into town for the sausage making competition at the Hermanhof Festhalle. The judging is done on Saturday, but on Sunday you can see the entries, both amateur and professional.



Several of the professional sausage makers have booths set up where you can try the sausage and then make purchases. I bought some cheddar beer brats and braunschweiger and both were delicious. Phoenix and Xena both got meaty bones and, judging by the fact that they didn't stop chewing for several hours, I think they would say they were delicious as well.



Hermann, MO is located about 90 miles west of St Louis (or 200 miles east of Kansas City) and has festivals and events year-round, along with museums, wineries, antique shops, and more bed and breakfasts than you'd think could fit in one town. Stay tuned next week when we visit the German School Museum, and mark your calendars for the Stone Hill Winery Grape Stomp in August! That's right, get your Lucy on and stomp grapes for charity!