The Tug of the Past: A Peek at the Seekerville Historical Museum

Happy birthday Seekerville! For four fabulous years, the Seekers have been sharing the ups and downs of writing, hoping to pass along a touch of wisdom and empathy to those traveling the road toward publication. In the process, we’ve met and made wonderful friends to share the journey and our stories with. Thanks to all of you for your support! Let's party!!

I’m excited and grateful all the Seekers have left Unpubbed Island, as have a number of the Seekerville faithful! Yay!! We’re moving to new digs. Not that we won’t visit the island, especially this winter when our quaint village of Seekerville turns frigid, but I think you’ll love our new home. Check it out at

http://www.seekerville.net/

I'm also excited to reveal the cover of my January 2012 Love Inspired Historical An Inconvenient Match! Here's a peek at the story.

THE BEST OF ENEMIES

His family destroyed hers. But Matthew Cummings’s job offer—to care for his recuperating father—is impossible to decline. Schoolteacher Abigail Wilson can swallow her pride for the sake of a summer paycheck that will help her sister. And when Abigail’s employment ends, old loyalties will separate the feuding families once more.

If there’s anyone in town stubborn enough to deal with Matthew’s cantankerous father, it’s Abigail. It’s just a business arrangement—and a temporary one, at that. Her good opinion shouldn’t matter a lick to Matt. Yet their different backgrounds belie a surprising kinship. Perhaps unexpected love will be their reward for the summer’s inconvenient match.

A new book cover, a new home--life is good!

Walk with me down Seekerville's Main Street. With the changing color of the fall leaves, the quaint buildings freshly painted, Seekerville is a lovely spot with lots of shops. The Seekers are settled overhead in our apartments. I decorated mine in shades of blue and yellow, cheerful serenity, the perfect spot to write.

As curator of the Seekerville Historical Museum, I’ll give a short tour of our museum filled with antiques and mementos guaranteed to take visitors back in time to small town and rural America, the setting for my books. The museum is up the street from the Yankee Belle Café. So grab a cup of java and join me.

I’ve set up rooms to show what life was like in the 1800s. To the right is the replica of a kitchen. Among the icebox, mammoth cook stove and pump inside the kitchen, I want to point out two conveniences that made a huge difference to women.

The Hoosier Cupboard, its metal tag proclaiming this modern aid saves homemakers a thousand steps. Before built-in kitchen cabinets, homemakers loved the combination flour-bin/sifter, its drawers and funnel shaped dispensers were lined with tin to keep rodents out of flour and sugar. Other conveniences were a revolving spice rack with glass jars and pull out workspace to make and roll out biscuits or a pie crust. The wood work surfaces were later covered with zinc, aluminum or porcelain for easier cleanup. Our example is covered with zinc. Note the iron apple peeler clamped onto the end and the slop bucket positioned underneath to catch peelings, food for the pigs.

The second convenience displayed on the oak kitchen table is a collection of pattern glass. This inexpensive glass revolutionized the glass industry in America. From the mid-eighteen hundreds though early 1900s middle class families who could not afford hand-cut glass, prized press-molded glass. Hundreds of patterns were made by many manufacturers. Here you see a pattern called Art, also known as Job’s Tears, depending on the manufacturer. Note the pitcher, spoon holder, lidded sugar bowl, round covered butter dish for churned and molded butter. Cake stands, tumblers and goblets, sauce and relish dishes, cruets, compotes and banana stands are a few of the other pieces in this and other patterns.

The museum is unusual in that visitors can walk through the exhibits and get a close up view. Stay a while. Visit the parlor, bedroom and porch. If you're looking for the bathroom, you'll have to step outside. The kitchen was the hub of the house where men shaved and the family bathed in copper or galvanized tubs, often sharing the same water. Though I love antiques and find history fascinating, I’m glad I live in this modern age.

If you love antiques, share some of your favorites, perhaps a shaving mug that belonged to your great-grandfather, a McGuffey’s Reader with a relatives name inside or a piec of flow-blue china. If you can’t abide artifacts of the past, tell us why you’re glad you were born later in history and your favorite modern conveniences. Comment often for more chances to win daily, weekly and the grand birthday prize!

I’m serving an old-fashioned farmer’s breakfast of fried eggs, meat and potatoes, biscuits and sausage gravy and coffee. Top a biscuit with homemade apple butter or blackberry jam. Enjoy! Those who want to live in the present, a McDonald’s drive-through is just down the road.

Today I’m opening the vault and giving away a four-book set of my historical romances, Courting Miss Adelaide, Courting the Doctor’s Daughter, The Substitute Bride and Wanted: A Family. If you’ve already read my books, thank you! If not, leave a comment and tell me you’d like to win. Even if you've read the books, you can give them away, a gift for a friend or relative.

An Inconvenient Match releases in January 2012. Last Minute Bride in the Brides of the West Anthology releases in April 2012.

Janet Dean grew up in a family who cherished the past and had a strong creative streak. Her father recounted fascinating stories, like his father before him. The tales they told instilled in Janet a love of history and the desire to write. She married her college sweetheart and taught first grade before leaving to rear two daughters, but Janet never lost interest in American history and the accounts of strong men and women of faith who built this country. With her daughters grown, she eagerly turned to Inspirational historical romance. Today Janet enjoys spinning stories for Steeple Hill Love Inspired Historical. When she isn’t writing, Janet stamps greeting cards, plays golf and is never without a book to read. The Deans love to travel and spend time with their family. Visit Janet at her Website: http://www.janetdean.net/ and blog: http://www.janetdean.blogspot.com/