Photograph by Cindy Gladden, courtesy of the Warren County Record
There are few places in the world where one can see an authentic tinsmith at work—or a mule-powered sorghum press. Which is why every October, people travel from around the country to attend Deutsch Country Days, a weekend-long living history event near Marthasville, Mo. Bob and Lois Hostkoetter have been hosting the event on their property, Luxenhaus Farm, for 28 years, and while they’ve changed and added things here and there, the goal has remained the same: to give people a direct experience with the folkways of Missouri’s early German settlers. Lois Hostkoetter spoke to us about what it takes to put on this huge, specialized event.
When do you start planning? Right away. We have a board meeting. People contribute ideas about what went well, what didn’t, what we should change, what we should add. That starts November 1. The artisans’ contracts go out in February. The printing of the brochure begins in April; we print close to 50,000, and we ran out last year. It starts getting crazy about the end of August. It’s called the best-kept secret in Missoura. Now, keep in mind I say ‘Missoura’ because I’m an original Missourian!
What’s the scale? Depending on the weather, the majority is done outside. We have close to 30 restored Missoura log cabins from all over the state that they were going to destroy. We started 32 years ago doing this. As far as people are concerned, it’s 8,000 to 11,000. It’s our 28th year. When we have really, really good weather and good PR, it’s on the top end of that. As far as size is concerned, we’re acres and acres.
So you probably have an army of volunteers. Usually around 150. And they’re from all over. We have an application that a lot of the guests complete. We get some foreign exchange students. We had one from Japan, and he wrote something up for a Japanese newspaper and sent us a copy, but the only words we could recognize were “root beer.”
How many artisans? Close to 80. I’d say close to 90 percent are artisans who have been with us forever, since the beginning. Now I look at other events, I see the artisans, and they’re all ours! [Laughs.] We went all over Illinois and Missoura, Iowa, finding people with unusual skills. That’s how we got started. After we became known and grew, then we had artisans contacting us.
Some of these crafts I’ve never even heard of. Now, remember these are not crafts. These are living history skills, from our early Germans. There’s a lot of difference between this and crappy crafts. That’s why our people who demonstrate are artisans, and not craftsmen. Many of them say there just isn’t anyplace they can go to demonstrate their skills, and so many of these things are being lost. Some of these things you can’t see anyplace else.
Like sad ironing? [Laughs.] That’s what it was called. The iron is actually made out of iron—it’s heavy! You put it on the cook stove, and it heats up, and while you are ironing your clothes you have another one sitting there as well, so when that one gets cool, you put it back on the cook stove … of course, in the meantime you’re also tending the stove. The women who did it, it got this name of sad ironing because it was such a pain. [Laughs.]
I didn’t realize the zither was so closely aligned with German immigrant culture, either. Well, the original zither was made over in Washington, Mo., right across the river from us, 11 miles away. We have a gentleman who is very knowledgeable, and he plays and discusses the history of zithers.
And the hide tanning—that’s a fairly intense process? Yes, now the hide tanning is done up in our Osage Trail, a new area two years ago, we just enhanced it a little. It’s dedicated to the Osage Indians that were here in this area. And we have French trappers, we call them the trappers of Starved Rock, but they come in and demonstrate these skills. They make guns, bows, arrows, that sort of thing. We also have traditional houses, exactly what the Osage would have had, the wikiup, and two longhouses. The representative from the Osage Nation came up and blessed everything. They said they had never seen anything that authentic. Everything that is here has been hand-constructed, mainly by volunteers.
Wow. That must be a new experience for a lot of people. Yes, last year up on the Osage Trail, one of the French trappers was cooking his lunch. And this city babe goes up and says, “What are you doing?” He says, “I’m making my lunch.” “Oh!” She turns and says, “Look, George, you can fry on a fire like that!” But the whole reason for this, there’s examples of things that people have never seen before. Ever. And the majority of ’em are city people—now of course I was a city girl, I grew up in Maplewood—they’re from all over. It does get to be humorous. But we are educating, and that’s our main goal.
So the week before the actual weekend…what’s that like? [Laughs.] I can’t even explain it. It’s like six hours of sleep, and come Sunday night…that’s when you end up with a migraine. [Laughs.] We have so many marvelous volunteers. If we didn’t, we couldn’t pull it off. Many of the artisans come in Tuesday or Wednesday, and they stay in Washington or Warrenton, but they don’t want to deal with last-minute hassles. We have volunteers who drive tractors and small Craftsman trailers, and they unload the artisans and their wares into the trailer, and then they take them up to where they’re located. We’re the only show that does that. But without the artisans, we wouldn’t have a show. You’ve got to treat them nice!
$15, $6 students and seniors. October 17 & 18, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 18055 State Highway O, three miles northeast of Marthasville, Mo., deutschcountrydays.org.
