Visiting Virginia
Beach’s Colonial Lynnhaven House by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
After
eating a grilled seafood lunch at the Boathouse with motorboats pulling up for
meals, my sister, Florence, and I went to the colonial Lynnhaven House.
The
Lynnhaven Houe has two rooms downstairs and two rooms upstairs. The guide told us the Bible box and the baby
cradle were kept close to windows in case of fire during colonial times; you
could toss them outside quickly that way.
Our
guide showed us how Dutch ovens worked.
The cast iron pot was surrounded by hot ashes on top, around, and under
the Dutch oven in the kitchen fireplaces.
The heat from the ashes cooked the food in these covered pots.
The
heat from the ashes cooked foods like cornbread. (Cornbread is Italian polenta in a sturdier
form. Most people make it with milk in
the South and eat it with salads using apple vinegar dressing, which prevents
pellagra from occurring in their families unlike the situation in the Italian
Veneto region.)
The
Lynnhaven House was continuously lived in from 1725 to 1970 our guide told
us. The house retained its cute sloping
roof throughout the centuries to deal with all the rain in the Tidewater area.
In
the upstairs portion of the house, we saw flax in all its various stages of
production from coarse plants to soft threads that the lady of house would
weave into multicolored threads.
The
store had a bunch of colonial toys in it like bears that would climb up to the
ceiling on string and Jacob’s Ladders.
After
visiting the Lynnhaven House, we went to Pizza Hut for mushroom-cheese pizza
and salad before heading out to the USS Austin’s Halloween party.
The
captain’s wife was happy when I told her that Laurent and I were going to help
with Florence’s school’s Halloween Party.
The captain’s wife was able to get some more volunteers out to Norfolk
(Virginia) schools.
Florence’s
teacher loved it that I would be an “unofficial grapevine” and tell ombudsmen, Military
doctors and nurses, and officers’ wives about what was needed in the community.
By
Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
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