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 The Christmas tree at the Spring-Ford Historical Society is trimmed with handmade paper ornaments, but the decorations are anything but simple.
The theme of this year’s holiday open house was scherenschnitte, the art of cut paper. White paper ornaments cut in intricate designs decorated the tree and were scattered throughout the regular displays in the museum.
The glass display case inside the museum’s front door featured a variety of scherenschnitte samples, “some cut and some collected,” according to museum director Carolyn Fetterolf.
Fetterolf explained that the historical society hosted a course in scherenschnitte earlier in the fall, so the society decided on that theme for the annual open house. “We’ve had a good time with it,” she remarked.
The open house also featured the sale of crafts and books, including society member Bill Brunner’s two publications of old pictures and postcards of the Twin-Boroughs. Among the crafts were beaded and quilling snowflakes and quilling gift cards.
In addition to the cut paper decorations, the museum’s regular displays of artifacts and memorabilia from the late 19th and early 20th centuries proved interesting for visitors. Reflecting the early industrial heritage of Royersford and Spring City, the main display floor in the museum’s barn features many cast iron kitchen ranges, parlor stoves and ovens from 1853 to the mid 1900s.
The museum also includes memorabilia and artifacts of the schools, other manufacturers, retailers and personal lives of the area. Among the items in the barn and the William Lewin Plantation House are a blacksmith shop, hand-blown glass bottles, a tubular knitting machine, sad irons and early gas and electric irons, a Victorian fireplace, a vintage studio camera and old personal cameras, canal and railroad items, antique clothing and World War I and II uniforms, medical equipment and more.
The Plantation House also contains the historical society office and a research library for local genealogy and history.
Admission to the museum is free. A $5 donation is charged for the use of the library by non-member adults.
The museum is open the first and third Sundays of every month, 1 to 3 p.m., as well as Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The museum is also open by appointment.
For information call 610-948-7127 or visit www.springcitypa.net/sfhs.htm.
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