Students bringing history to life at farm museum
Students from Ulrich Intermediate School have been bringing the past to life this year at the Historic Wunderlich Farm and Klein, Texas Museum.
Members of the campus’ history club have made it their mission to serve as costumed docents at the museum — a homestead, now surrounded by suburban housing developments, that stands as a reminder of the way of life in Klein when northwest Harris County was a rural area farmed by German immigrants.
The Peter Wunderlich farmhouse, first built in 1891 by Peter Wunderlich II, now stands as a living history center, open to the public on the last Saturday of every month.
Steven Baird serves as living history educator and district historian for Klein Independent School District, which manages the property.
The home was transformed into
a museum by the Klein Historical Foundation in 1995 with exhibits meant to capture life in Klein from 1890 to 1920. The walls have never been sheetrocked, wallpapered or painted. Outside, a chicken house, smokehouse and barn remain.
Unlike most museums, Wunderlich Farm was designed to be interactive, a place where guests can see and touch history, Baird said.
However, until recently, he felt something was missing — a cast of characters on the farm. On a trip to the Dallas Heritage Village, he had been impressed by the center’s Junior Historian Program.
Baird learned that the Dallas Heritage Village had created a chapter of the Texas State Historical Association Junior Historian Program and members of the group were serving as docents on the property.
“I thought it was such a great project, and I wondered if we had a group near here,” Baird said. “I started looking around and found that Ulrich had one.”
John Wilson, sixthgrade social studies teacher, had started a chapter of the Texas State Historical Association Junior Historian Program at Ulrich when the school opened.
“Steve Baird contacted me two years ago and said would you guys be interested in coming out to help out on the farm,” Wilson recalled. “We said that we would love to.
“I told Mr. Baird that I could not guarantee how many would show up, but the first time, eight came,” Wilson said.
He said that Baird provides the training and the students come in costume on the Saturdays the museum is open to the public. There are usually five to 10 club members who volunteer each time.
“They dress the part,” Wilson said. “The boys look like Henry Fonda from ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ and the girls look like Laura Ingalls Wilder from ‘Little House on the Prairie.’ ”
Wilson has created a shopping guide, telling students where they can readily buy garb that will work for period costumes.
The first time students come out to the property, Baird gives them a tour and allows them to pick a house or building to be based at.
“They learn all about the history of the house,” Wilson said. “After a year or so of doing it, they are able to talk to visitors in first person as if they lived in the house.”
The students also provide demonstrations of life on the farm — from grinding corn to branding animals.
“We teach them and then they turn around and teach the public,” Wilson said.
Wilson said the history club is a service organization and helping out with Wunderlich fits its mission. On Veterans Day, members give teachers poppies to wear in honor of fallen service members. For winter break, the club gives cookies and cider to faculty members.
“They do things to help out around campus,” Wilson said.
Club members also attend the General Sam Houston Folk Festival in Huntsville and provide demonstrations on how to make cornhusk dolls and dip candles. They have served as docents at the Rosenberg Railroad Museum and other historic sites.
“We’re getting out there to help preserve history,” Wilson said. “When they get older, they can share their love of history and help preserve the memories of what happened.”
He said that the club members are serious about living history. A few of them are even starting to sew their own costumes.
Michelle Jordy, seventhgrade social studies teacher, serves as the club sponsor.
“History gets pushed aside,” she said. “But I’m a big proponent of: ‘If you don’t learn your history then you’re doomed to repeat it.’ ”
Jordy said the history club members have taken to their parts at Wunderlich Farm.
“For a general junior high student, going into re-enactment is not necessarily something they’d want to do,” she said. “But they get out on a Saturday morning and they’re dressed in their 1900s farm-wear, teaching people how they used to wash clothes and shuck corn. There are lots of things they get to do there, and they just think it’s really cool.”
Jordy is convinced that the experience will stick with the students for life.
“It means more when it’s not just words on a page and they really get to experience the story,” she said. “History is the story of us and we work hard to make sure the kids understand that.”
Baird hopes that students learn that there are careers in living history.
“It’s a big field, with a lot of options,” he said. “They also learn that history can be fun. It’s not just a bunch of boring facts.”
He plans to grow the program over time.
“Just having the kids walk around in period outfits adds realism for the visitors coming through,” he said. “We’re continuously hearing how impressed they are with the kids and how engaging the kids are.”
Baird also wants to inspire others to start history clubs and to get more students involved in volunteering with historic groups.
“This gives them a chance to find something they are interested in and passionate about, and it gives them a chance to develop it,” he said. “As teachers, that’s what we want to do.”
Laura Mullis joined the history club in seventh grade and took over as docent of the schoolhouse at Wunderlich Farm. She still returns even though she is now in ninth grade and has graduated from Ulrich.
“I always liked social studies, and I thought this would be a good way to meet people,” she said. “I had visited Wunderlich Farm in elementary school and just loved it. I thought it would be really cool to teach other people in the community about it.”
Mullis enjoys dressing up in costume, setting up the schoolhouse and demonstrating how to write with old-fashioned ink pens.
“I talk to people about how school was run back then,” she said. “I like learning from experience instead of a textbook or something like that. This has really motivated me to learn more about history.”
Mullis recommends volunteering at Wunderlich and joining the history club at Ulrich to other students. “It’s a really good learning experience,” she said. “If you’re interest ed in history, it’s a lot more hands-on. It’s more real and relatable. And it’s a lot of fun.”