DEAR SHIRLEY: UKRAINIAN VILLAGE

As the child of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Carole had a particular interest in this historic site. Their website has several virtual tours of the village. Ukrainian Village

We were hungry so we cautiously headed to the cafe.

Relieved that it wasn't run by some soulless concessionaire (we've been to a lot of National Parks lately) we both ordered the Borscht. We liked it very much. They gave us a free piece of cake and we each ordered a Pampushky. We chose the poppyseed because Carole's Mom used to make a similar pastry. Linda asked for the borscht recipe. After a couple of phone calls to get permission, the young server said she'd copy it for us and to come back in a few minutes. We waited and waited. It took more than a half-hour and when she handed it to us we saw that she had written out the very long recipe by hand.

As we were finishing, Tony, Michelle and Nikki arrived.

Linda overheard a woman mention "Sponge Toffee" and asked her what it was. Of course then she had to buy some.

We started by going through the museum to learn more about the village.

We walked around town exploring the different buildings. The site is laid out in clusters of buildings representing different decades of the Ukrainian immigration and settlement, 1892 to 1930. When we paid our admission and were given maps, we were told that many of the guides were not only in period costume but were also role-playing and could not answer questions about more recent events than the period of the area they were in. This Wikipedia entry explains it.

And of course, who did we run into? Perfect score if you guessed Al and Anna.

We stopped to see a church and the guide explained the three different churches of Eastern Byzantine Rite in the village.

Michelle and Nikki going into St Vladimir's Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church.

Interpreter in Ukrainian Greek Orthodox Church

St. Nicholas Russo-Greek Orthodox Church

St Nicholas Ukrainian Greek Catholic Orthodox Church aka St Mary's

The general store.

Tony pumping gas the old fashioned way, with a hand pump. He filled the reservoir right up!

As the wagon passed us, we decided to jump on the next time we saw it.

Beautiful old barn

The girls' school.

Inside the school house, note the different sizes of desks. Carole went to a school like this.

The Schoolmaster was out walking when Carole approached him about having his photo taken. He was concerned that he did not have his suit jacket on and joked that it would ruin the negative in her camera.