In December, we posted about the Big Piney 4th Graders visiting the Sommers Ranch Homestead near Pinedale, Wyo. The McKinnon School also visited the Sommers Ranch Homestead Museum and Living History Center in October 2012.
It was a great experience for the students to learn Wyoming history.
J.B. Bond showed the group how to make a front and back horseshoe with a forge.
Sam Drucker talked about Indian archaeology on the place.
Dawn Ballou orchestrated washing clothes with wash tubs, scrub boards and hand pumping the water. Dawn also explained how the root cellar was used.
Jonita Sommers and Sam Drucker supervised the students gathering eggs and cleaning them. Jonita also showed them how to iron clothes by heating the iron on the cook stove and how the cook stove worked.
Jamie Brewer taught them how to churn butter after explaining how the milk separator worked. Jamie made homemade sourdough bread so when the butter was churned everyone could have a piece of bread with the churned butter and chokecherry jelly Jonita had made.
The teachers were able to supervise the students playing with the toys in the children’s room in the bedroom upstairs and playing on the ranch built playground equipment outside along with having them look at the shop and outhouse that are renovated.
They were also able to rope! This was a wonderful opportunity for the students to gain hands-on experience of pioneer life.
From RealRancher Jonita Sommers – Pinedale, Wyo.
About the Sommers Ranch Homestead Museum & Living History Center:
The Sublette County Historical Society joined in 2010 with siblings Albert and Jonita Sommers to restore the historic Sommers Homestead buildings. The project preserves them for future interpretation and makes them available to the public. The project has restored several of the homestead buildings to use for display, interpretation and living history demonstrations of 1900-1950 era Sublette County homestead life. The homestead house, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, is a main attraction. Albert and Jonita donated the buildings and provided a one-acre easement where the buildings are located. The Sommers Ranch Homestead Museum and Living History Center is located about seven miles south of the Cora Y on the Green River. The ranchland surrounding the Homestead is under conservation easement with the Wyoming Stock Growers Land Trust, so the Homestead will continue to be surrounded by the historic ranch landscape for generations to come.
RealRanchers.com 