Volunteers display old-time skills at Frohna festival

FROHNA, Mo. -- Visitors to Saxon Lutheran Memorial in Frohna took a break from technology Saturday with demonstrations of how to make maple syrup, rope, kettle corn, bread and apple butter. Outdoor activities were handled by about 30 volunteers, most in period costume. Guided tours through the old structures were scheduled at two-hour intervals.

Saturday was the opening day for the log cabin village's 2008 season.

Near the fireplace at the visitors center, Dorothy Weinhold of Frohna spun wool on an heirloom wheel that had been stored in the attic of the house she was born in. "I've been to every Fall Festival here, and I usually spin at the Schuppan Cabin," she said. Weinhold fed the corded wool onto the wheel in a fashion that didn't make the yarn appear too even because she likes the look.

Bread makers had the community brick oven fired up to 500 degrees before pulling out the coals from the wood fire. Once the temperature dropped to 300 degrees the small group monitored how often the door was opened, protecting the success of the whole-wheat sourdough, focaccia, cottage and stone-ground varieties of bread baking inside.

Aileen Petzoldt of Frohna had a loaf of stone ground rye rising in her Suburban with the sun's help. Some let their bread rise a second time at the bake room for fear it would fall during transport.

Near the bake house, a group of cookers stirred star anise, cinnamon, 25 pounds of sugar and 22 gallons of applesauce to make deep red apple butter. They began at 6 a.m. by cleaning the copper kettles, stored in the bake house, with salt and vinegar. By 6:30 a.m. the wood fire was ready for cooking. The sauce deepened in color as sugar was added, and a nearby kettle of boiling hot water was used to thin the sauce down without stopping the cooking.

Harold Gerecke stirred a kettle of apple butter Saturday at the Saxon Lutheran Memorial in Frohna, Mo. (Aaron Eisenhauer)

Larry and Lorna Steffens of Frohna said they cooked apple butter at every fall festival for more than 25 years. "Sometimes we have as many as seven kettles going. In October, we made 147 gallons and sold all of it," Lorna Steffens said.

She said cooking apple butter on a wood fire in copper kettles makes it taste better.

Her husband said they used applesauce instead of apples to start with Saturday and at the fall festival because of the price of apples.

John and Beverly King of Cape Girardeau were first-time visitors to Saxon Lutheran Memorial and didn't understand why they hadn't been there before. "We've visited Longtown, Shawneetown, Pocahontas, Old Appleton," Beverly King said. "We knew about the fall festival but just didn't get to doing it."

"These people seem really friendly. I think more people should come out here if they're interested in local history," John King said.

Opposite the bake house and apple butter making were sites where kettle corn, maple syrup and rope were made.

Robert Schuessler of Frohna took the foam off a boiling kettle of maple syrup to check its color. He had been advised by Howard Fiehdler, 80, to check the color and cook it slowly. Schuessler said the color should be light brown when it's done. "It's important to do this because we're learning the legacy. Those people won't always be around," Schuessler said.

The 11-acre site, established in memory of early Saxon settlers, is open March 1 to Nov. 30. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Saxon Lutheran Memorial offers a visitors center for events, group tours, catch-and-release fishing and outdoor picnicking. Call 573-824-5404 or visit saxonlutheranmemorial.com for more information.

cpagano@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 133