The brick for this house was purchased at Beeman's brickyard in Waterloo, while the lumber came from the Realy's own land. The brick section of the house has some interesting double-cross designs of stone and another large area to the south, where stones and mortar were laid up instead of brick. The smaller areas were skinned over with a thin layer of mortar, but the large area was falling apart so the stone was re-pointed and left uncovered. What was this large area? Certainly not a door, as there is a chimney above it. Were these areas money-savers? Or was this a design, created from memories of houses in Germany? A visitor, who had studied architecture, recalled for us that he had seen pictures of such designs. However, until this is thoroughly researched, it remains somewhat a mystery.

The fancy curved shingles on the porches are copiesof those found under the rotting shingles.

THE WOODSHED

We come into the house the way a farm family would enter, through the woodshed. Using our imagination, it is easy to see the farmer scraping the mud off his shoes onto the scraper affixed to the step outside, shooing away the flies from the door, and once inside, wiping his feet on a mat of cornhusks or a folded piece of old rag carpet. The worn floors of this room are evidence that this was the common entrance.

Here, a supply of good dry wood was stored to keep the heating stoves going in the winter, and the kitchen stoves going year 'round. Cooking, baking, washing and ironing, dishwashing and "washing up" at the kitchen sink, as well as the Saturday night bath all meant keeping the stove fired up. That took a lot of wood! Every time the children came in, they were expected to carry in an armload of wood from the outdoor woodpile.

When winter set in, butchering was done. Sides of beef and pork, along with a deer or two, perhaps wild turkeys, marsh birds, rabbits, and other game hung from the racks, high at the far side of the shed. Aside from wild game, pork was the most' common meat on the Michigan farmer's table. Cattle produced milk, butter, and cheese, all of which were sold for cash or trade; but pigs produced only meat and thrived on acorns, skim milk and middlings. Meat was kept in the shed as long as cold weather held. If a warm spell came, it had to be put down in salt brine, smoked, cured, or canned.

In mild weather, the Monday wash was done in the woodshed, away from the heat of the kitchen stove. The woodshed was the home of the copper boiler, the wash board, tubs, wringer, and the latest "labor saving" washing machine. In the years when there were children in the house, nails were driven in the walls for skates and sleds were pulled inside after the day's play, so they wouldn't be buried in the snow before morning.

THE KITCHEN
The kitchen was a very pleasant place with its door and window to the west, catching the prevailing breezes. This was especially welcome in summer when one was canning at the woodstove. In farm kitchens of yesteryear, a comfortable rocker was often provided for grandmother or a maiden aunt. She was a useful member of the household, lending a hand with the churning, drying dishes, and peeling potatoes for dinner. But most important was her minding the small children, binding cut fingers and stubbed toes, and giving comfort in the big and little griefs of childhood.

The stove was the very heart of the kitchen. It was for boiling, roasting, and frying (most meats were fried); and for baking too, when the outdoor bake house was not in use. On this stove, water was heated for the family wash, for dishwashing, washing up at the sink, and for the Saturday night bath and the irons were warmed for smoothing.

For the weekly bathing ritual, the wash tub was brought in from the woodshed and each member of the family took their turn, with complete privacy while he or she bathed. Of course, mother exercised her right to a final check of the younger ones to see that no spots were neglected.

The sink was used quite differently than today. It was for washing up before meals and to stand in front of while shaving and combing the hair. A mirror leaning forward above a high shelf helped to reduce the nicks that could easily be made with a straight razor.

A pump at one end brought rainwater from the cistern under the floor. To a child, it was very exciting to watch one of the grown men wash his face. First, he rubbed his dampened hands over the bar of homemade soap and lathered his face, neck and ears thoroughly. Now, bending over the low sink, he would scoop up water in his cupped hands, and with much spattering and sputtering, eyes shut tight, slosh off his face, neck and ears - even his hair! Then he would dry himself briskly on the roller towel, slick back his wet hair and run through it with the family comb. A final glance in the mirror and just a slight glow of self-approval. What a transformation! Could this be the same man the child had seen from the window as he stopped for a drink at the well? Gone is the sweat-streaked dust of the fields and washed away the lines of weariness.

Our little table is set for a small child, or for the hired men. This family of ten ate in the dining room. Freshened up and hungry, Pa sat down to the meal. The women already have carried in the dishes of steaming food, for no good farm wife kept her men-folk waiting for meals.

THE PANTRY

The great size of the pantry in this house and the elegance of its cupboards are as clear an indication as anything of the prosperity the Realys had achieved by 1885, when the frame addition was built.

This room was the scene of preparations of baked goods, the home of the flour bin and the sugar barrel. Here, the bread dough was mixed, the cookies pressed, and the coffee ground.

On the table in this room the dishes were washed in a granite dishpan (water was warmed on the stove) and dried. The tableware went into the push-through drawers so the dining table could be set from the other side. The lower cupboard held crocks of lard and jugs of vinegar, molasses and the like.

Here was the pie safe, covered with punched tin or screening panels to keep out the flies. Food left over from the noon dinner was stored here, waiting to be rewarmed for supper or tomorrow's breakfast. Bacteria and germs were unknown dangers in' those days; safety from flies, mice, cats and dogs was the primary concern.

The doorway leads to the cellar, where canned fruit, jelly, and preserves were stored on hanging shelves close to the stairs. Bins held root vegetables and apples. Barrels containing hard cider were kept in the cool cellar, which has a dirt floor and fieldstone walls.

THE DINING ROOM

In this room, the extension table with its extra leaves that could be stretched and stretched to accommodate anyone who arrived near mealtime…the peddlar with his pack, the parson, friends who drove into the yard. Folks were hurt if you passed by without stopping. It is hard for us to imagine a time when all the news was carried by word of mouth from the closest village by a man with oxen, which traveled about two miles an hour, or a horse at three or four. Folks didn't get about much, except in emergencies. They were too busy at home in good weather and in bad weather, the roads were almost impassable.

Some years they got to the county fair in Jackson, or a camp meeting, or they just loaded everybody into the sleigh, put the calf in with the cow, and went visiting in the winter. Mostly, they were just lonesome. Therefore, the traveler was lured in with the smell of cooking to sit and talk, and eat and talk. Thus was the farmer's wife repaid.

When the family meal was over, the dining room commonly became the center of family activities, the long table providing a place for Pa to spread his newspaper, for Ma to lay out her quilt blocks, and for children to do their lessons, while the hanging lamp shed light over all

Our table is set with dishes that could be purchased in any general store. The Society was able to put together a set (that doesn't quite match) because we received a plate from one donor, a dish from another, etc. Just about every English potter produced this tea leaf pattern. You will see many different English potters represented here. Notice the silverware, with its sharply pointed forks and the spoons, placed in a spoon dish. Household chores were difficult; there was no need to place a spoon at everyone's place, since some family members did not use a spoon. If one was needed, a person could help himself from the common spoon dish. Napkins were of cloth and were rolled up at one's place, to be used again and again.

The daybed provides a place for Pa to take his nap, after the noon dinner. After all, he was working since the crack of dawn. Restored with energy after 30 min. to an hour, he resumed his afternoon work until sunset when he comes in for supper. The daybed is also convenient for a sick child, close to Ma and the warmth of the room.

THE SITTING ROOM

This was also a "family room", a workroom during the daytime for spinning, winding yard and the close, fine sewing that needed daylight. Here, the children played with their toys and the baby was rocked in his or her cradle - if the children weren't all in the kitchen, under foot.

In the evening, if the family group was too large to sit around the dining table, everyone gathered here. The central table held a lamp. After completing their schoolwork, the children might play a game of checkers with Grandfather. Pa was always knitting socks, mittens, and caps. At the desk, Pa could write an infrequent letter, or he worked on his ledger, keeping meticulous track of every 25 cents paid for a haircut - or 25 cents earned from selling a pail of milk. Here the family munched on crisp apples and hot popcorn. The stove provided a coziness that was hard in leave in wintertime; bedrooms were very cold in those days.

This sitting room was a real "living room" in the pioneer sense. The west wall butted up against the old log house (which was where the dining room now stands). This is an interior wall. Compare it with the thick brick and stone exterior walls on the north. In 1855, sixteen-year-old Jacob Realy and his stepfather added this room onto the log house. At some unknown later time, the front rooms and the upstairs were built.

THE PARLOR
This was a special room, kept for the most formal occasions: weddings, funerals, and the calls of honored guests. Otherwise, the shades were drawn, the stove was cold, and the doors were closed. This room was aired and dusted periodically, but it was not used in the average daily life of the family. Because of its formal character, those who were entertained here were expected to carry on a conversation of dignity and sit straight in their chairs. Here, the family mementos were displayed on the what-not shelf, together with the so-called "lady's work": wreaths of seeds, feathers, or dried flowers, lace "tidies" and doilies. Travelers brought home the shells and Pa found bits of petrified wood, arrowheads, and pretty stones that were turned up with the plow.

This room, set aside within a household dedicated to long, hard days of toil, was a symbol of the family's aspirations, their hopes that children might see a world beyond where parents often lived out their whole lives. The conch shell in the corner was more than just "pretty" it was a promise of better things to come.

A gift of the Michigan Historical Museum, our melodeon dates from circa 1890. The legs will collapse and the instrument can be carried by two men, loaded on a buckboard, and taken to the local school or church for an evening of community entertainment. Melodeons are reed instruments, played by pumping air through reeds in the same way that woodwind instruments produce tone. One could be purchased through the Montgomery catalog for $25. Their size and price made them far more reasonable than a piano and therefore, very popular.

WEAVING ROOM

Looms were set up in sheds, summer kitchens, and unfinished rooms, but usually only in one home of a neighborhood by the 1850'sand 60's. Weaving was a source of income and the Parks family members were the local weavers. Children and the old folk were set to ripping old, castoff clothing into strips, sewing the strips together, and rolling them into balls for the weaver.

Plain colors were wound into hanks on the yarn winder and dyed to suit the housewife's fancy. They gave interest to sections of "hit or miss" rags torn from patterned or odd bits of fabric. To plan the design, weavers were given a small stick with samples of the rags of the appropriate colors tied on in the required number of rows.

There were yard goods for sale in town and there were peddlers, but thrifty housewives with sheep and flax took advantage of local weavers. The only cost would be the piece of yardage taken by the weaver as his pay; no cash was required.

When the Realys lived in this house, each of these four small bedrooms, two down and two up, were used by the boys: John, Burt, Charlie, and Dan.

MARY'S ROOM

The exhibit in this room was planned by three old friends, Ardie Collins, Edna Walz, and Mary Brown. They grew up together in the Village of Waterloo. The dress was worn in 1868 when the owner was seventeen, the cotton nightgown and chemise, a little later. The stenciled window shade was fashionable in the 60's and 70's and is a reconstruction. The quilt pattern on the bed was designed by the husband of one of the ladies. The framed collection of bobbins is from a woman whose husband was a ship captain. Every time he returned from a long voyage, he brought her a bobbin to use in lace making. We call this "Mary's Room" because it shows the kind of room that would be set aside for a traveling seamstress or the local schoolteacher. An unmarried woman would stay with a family that hired her to do some special sewing. When the job was completed, she would move on to another family. Families also took turns housing the local schoolteacher, also unmarried.

UPPER HALLWAY

Coming up this stairway with the low railing, we are reminded that earlier people were much shorter than those of today.

This hallway houses one of the few possessions we have that belonged to the Realy Family: a framed copy of the Lord's Prayer. In examining this picture, we found two postcards from the 1890's on the inside of the back covering.

In the corner by the window, we have an example of a very old desk that a family would continue to use, but they would keep it away from the vision of company. This particular piece came with a story; it came to Michigan in 1831 and belonged to a family that settled east of here, in a log house. President Van Buren appointed the man postmaster of the area and this desk was used for sorting the neighbors' mail and to collect postal fees. The desk remained in the same family for five generations, until it was given to us. We show the desk as it might have been used in this house -a special place for Ma to keep her diary and letters from her family.

CHILDREN'S LARGE BEDROOM
Here are two old roped beds which came to Michigan in the 1830's. The cannon ball bed has a blanket roll at the foot. In a large family with five or six children of the same sex, one or both of these beds would have accommodated two or three little ones, the youngest in the middle for warmth and to keep her from falling out. The trundle bed provided additional sleeping space

The room would have been very cold in winter, being over the unused parlor with its stove generally unlit. Hot bricks and soapstones warmed icy sheets for the children. Every bedroom had its washstand with bowl and pitcher and soap dish. Except for the Saturday night bath in the kitchen, all tidying up of the person was accomplished in the bedroom. Closets are almost nonexistent in 19th century houses. Clothes were hung on wall pegs or stored in trunks.

The carpet is "ingrain", a reversible pattern and the first step up from rag carpet. A carpet such as we see here would have served first in a downstairs room. Only when somewhat worn would it have been laid in the upstairs bedroom.

The framed picture of the sweet little girl was given to us by a family that purchased the picture at the Realy auction.

There is some evidence that this bedroom was originally intended for Grandmother Fredericka Siebold. Johannes died in 1859, which may or may not have been before this section of the house was built. Nevertheless, we can picture Fredericka having this special room for her own use. It would have been very pleasant in the summertime. In later years, it was probably used by the three girls.

TOY ROOM

This room was restored primarily to house a fine collection of dolls and toys. Victorian children had few toys. Such treasured pieces were often as not made by Pa or Grandfather. When outgrown, they were handed down to the next child. Children's toys often were miniatures of tools used by Ma and Pa. Thus, girlswould haye a small wash tub and scrub board for washing doll clothes, perhaps a small iron, too. Boys might have a set of small carpenter tools, maybe a gun. Both played with toys that had religious significance: Noah's Ark, for example.

PARENTS’ ROOM

Here, the cradle is close by the parents' bed. This made it easy for Ma to rock the baby gently, should he or she wake in the night. When this did not take care of the situation, the child was taken into bed to rest on mother's arm and be nursed. Often in coldest weather, baby slept in bed beside the mother the entire night for warmth. The only heat in this room came from the stovepipe and when the fire burned low in the downstairs room, it was vary cold indeed.

Sheets and night-clothes stayed warm and dry on the shelves of the chimney cupboard. Extra quilts and linens nay have been stored in the blue wardrobe. This amoire is a very early piece from the Gregory area. Running your fingers over the surface reveals hand planing.

The sharply angled rockers of the brown chair show that it was for shaving. Father tipped back and held the basin of hot water under his chin, while Ma wielded the straight razor. Men folk in early Michigan were clean-shaven.

After the death of Catherine, Sophia Realy wanted this nice room for herself. Her bachelor brothers made her bargain for it. She had to promise to do their share of the garden work.

THE ATTIC

This room has had many uses. Some have called It a hired men's chamber because we are told that in some families the hired men slept there. However, on very hot nights, they probably slept in the barn on the hay.

Surely, on rainy days the children played here. Ida Realy, later Mrs. John Schumacher, told us of "playing house" in one corner of the room. When company came, while grownups discussed recipes, crops, and politics in the sitting room, the young folks came up here to play games - "London Bridge", "The Needles Eye", "Happy is the Miller", "The Willow it will Twist, the Willow it will Twine", - circle games played to tunes every child knew, and their parents before them.

And, just as we do today, under the eaves discarded furniture was stashed away. Not good enough to use, but too good to throw away, that broken chair might be needed some day. The right day never came for repairs, yet all the odds and ends of things were saved. German people were frugal so, into the attic went all the things they were tired of looking at but couldn't bring themselves to burn.

Most exciting of all were the trunks of cast-off clothing, fashions of other days, in which the girls liked to dress up and pretend being grownup ladies. For dreamy moods, there were boxes of keepsakes, souvenirs of times to be remembered, little bundles of letters tied with string, some from relatives they had never seen, in far away Germany.

THE DRYING ROOM

Safe methods of canning fruits and vegetables for winter were not known in great-grandmother's time. Besides, glass jars cost money! What couldn't be salted down had to be dried. Apples, pears, peaches, and pumpkin were sliced, strung, and hung to dry. Seed corn was saved in the south gable (really the floor over the woodshed) and here, too, were the baskets and kegs of walnuts, butternuts, and hickory nuts gathered by the children.

The early settlers brought some knowledge of medicinal herbs with them, but they learned much more from the Indians. Only the gravest illness justified going for a doctor, even if one could be had. There was heal-all, boneset, burdock, sassafras, catnip, chamomile, lady slipper root, horehound, foxglove, life-ever-lasting and a dozen others, each with its own power to heal. Other herbs were used for flavoring in cooking and baking. Dill was used in pickling, while caraway, anise, and fennel were popular seasonings for cookies and coffee-breads. Thyme and sage went in stuffing for fowl.

Especially appealing were the herbs for fragrance. Sweet clover hung among the woolens was thought to keep moths away. Lavender, rose-geranium, lemon verbena, and sweet woodruff were tied in little bags to be tucked in dresser drawers and chests with clothing and the linens.

Besides dried herbs, fruits, and vegetables, this portion of the attic is where Pa kept his best carpenter tools. Grandfather brought some of these from Germany in 1844; P>some were handmade and others were purchased at the general store.