Old Independence Regional Museum’s new exhibit “Child Care Continues to Change” February 21 –
Old Independence Regional Museum’s new exhibit “Child Care Continues to Change” February 21 – The care of babies and toddlers has changed over the decades. From cloth diapers to disposable ones, from dressing both little boys and girls in long dresses, and from making baby milk formulas at home with Karo syrup and evaporated milk, to buying containers of formula on store shelves.
Old Independence Regional Museum is introducing a new exhibit titled “Child Care Continues to Change” with an opening program on Sunday, February 21 at 2 p.m. All mothers and dads, grandparents and everyone, are invited to share their memories of how babies and toddlers were fed, rocked, confined, and medicated in years past.
Twyla Gill Wright, exhibit curator, asked, “Does anyone remember taking a spoonful of castor oil, feeding a baby with a silver spoon, or rinsing diapers? I hope the room will be filled with folks who will tell their stories. I’m excited to help everyone, through a roving microphone, to bring those past and present memories to light!”
June Armstrong recently told Wright, “I remember when Mama tucked my dress tail under a bed post on the floor to keep me safe when she had to cook or do something else with two hands. Of course today that would be unheard of!”
The exhibit includes a baby in just that dress-tail position. Seven “babies” can be seen in various sections, including one being rocked in a “mammy bench” (ca 1840 given by Eddie and Robin Brock), another being rocked in a fine “field cradle” (ca 1850 given by Jean Crouch). Still another baby is being diapered on a changing table (ca 1950s given by the Stokes family).
Continuing around the exhibit room, visitors will view another baby in a small wooden bed that was once placed under a shade tree at the edge of the cotton patch while the mother picked down a row and checked on him. And there is a classic 1950s wooden playpen that once confined a toddler with a bunch of toys while the mom quickly cleaned house. A Victorian high chair sits empty, but it once held I.N. Barnett as a baby. It dates back to 1903 and is on loan by the Barnett family.
