Belvidere Fall Festival

Fall was in the air in the little town of Belvidere this Sunday at their annual Fall Festival.

Former President Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln meandered through cars at the car show. Children rode around the grounds on a little train. People showcased their crafts, ranging from jams and jellies, to rugs and tiny windmills and flowers made out of spun wheat straw. Both young and old found the perfect gourd or pumpkin out of a large selection in front of the quonset.

“Dig in the haystack for quarters in one minute!” yelled a gentleman standing by a pile of hay on the ground.

Children of all ages gradually found their way over to the haystack and stood around it, looking at each other.

“Ready, set, go!” yelled the gentleman, and children jumped into the hay.

A little blond-haired girl in a red and white dress found her way over to the haystack. She looked questioningly at the pile, then at her parents standing nearby. She then started into the pile, minus her shoes, to dig for the shiny coins.

On the other side of the pile, Luisa Lemke already had a handful of quarters.

After all of the quarters had been found, a child-sized train driven by Kyle Timmerman grabbed the attention of little Sawyer Wilson. He was lifted into a train cart made out of a fifty-gallon drum. As the train took off toward the Union Pacific caboose on the museum grounds, Sawyer looked back at his parents, waving happily and yelling “Bye, Mom!”

Numerous classic cars sat on the east edge of the festival grounds. A bright green Plymouth GTX,  yellow Chevrolet Camaro, a Hummer H3 decked out as a Nebraska Cornhusker’s tailgate dream machine, a green Dodge Charger and a maroon 1949 Cadillac Fleetwood  were amongst the lineups.

“Sixty nine?” asked Abraham Lincoln to a man wiping down a blue Ford Mustang.

“Sixty eight,” replied the car’s owner proudly.

Inside the metal building, Diane Gardener, from Formoso, Kans. stood in her booth, making a thread by spinning wheat.

Diane has been spinning wheat since 1986 and is a member of the National Association of Wheat Weavers. Her crafts, known as “A Touch of Kansas,”range from windmills and crosses to wall hangings, all made from spun wheat or paper made from crushed wheat.

She demonstrated how to make a tiny flower out of the wheat. Carefully, she wrapped the threads around two needles, threading them through and soon, she produced a little flower no bigger than a dime.

Under a white tent near the metal building, Bill Dean, a Civil War living history presenter, stood dressed in a Union Army uniform.
Two men were gazing at Dean’s many Civil War artifacts on a table, as well as asking questions about the medals that he wore.

Dean’s artifacts filled up a large  table. There were knives, pouches, tools, buttons and even a case full of bullets.

Dean also had a Civil War-era gun that he would periodically fire off.

The Belvidere Fall Festival was a well-attended event this year, and will be back next September.