Baker Block Museum Newsletter Experience. Discover. Connect
Winter 2019
INSIDE THIS ISSUE Director’s Notes and President’s Message
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Wall of Honor Nominations
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Shape Note Singing
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Resurfacing project
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End of an Era
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Oil can donation
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Calendar of Events
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Laurel Hill’s April Arts & Heritage Festival
The Shape of Singing
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n the late 1870s, a normal school was founded to teach a system based on a seven-shaped musical note scale known today as shape notes. This made it possible for everyone to learn to follow a musical score and sing—even if he or she couldn’t read music. It also provided a completely different style of harmony and distinct sound.
CONTACT Phone: 850-537-5714 Mail: P.O. Box 186 Baker, FL 32531 Email: bakermuseum@aol.com Location: Corner of State Road 4 and Highway 189 in Baker, Florida
The songs representing Christian life and worship were sung mostly at community gatherings in churches, outside, or in large auditoriums. These events were at the heart of social engagement and entertainment for communities in this area in the early years. See The Heritage of Okaloosa County, FL. Volume II for a more detailed history of this music. This genre of music includes: seven-shape singing; Sacred Harp, “Fa So La”; convention singing, and Stamps-Baxter songbooks. The gospel quartet grew out of these music traditions, including the Bill Gather group, a current popular legacy of these styles. By Julia Cadenhead
www.bakerblockmuseum.org Editor’s Note: See pages 2-3 for more on shape note singing. And look for a new book in the Museum’s series on this subject sometime this year.
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Experience. Discover. Connect
Winter 2019
Director’s Notes
President’s Message
We are looking forward to the coming year at the Baker Block Museum and to several projects that will benefit our museum and community. One of those projects will be the construction of a pavilion in the Heritage Park, thanks to many individual donations and the fundraising efforts of our outstanding volunteers. A special thanks to the Crestview Rotary Club for its generous donation of $2,500 toward this project and to Heather Taylor Bryson for her many volunteer hours and fundraising.
New year, new ideas—that’s what you’ll see at the Baker Block Museum in 2019.
The Baker Block Museum is currently in the application phase with the Florida Historical Marker Program to raise awareness of the rich history of our museum building. We believe our building, which is well over 100 years old is a shoo-in for this marker.
Just for starters, we’re kicking off 2019 with a new logo, tag line and format for our newsletter. The logo, on the front of the newsletter, captures the uniqueness of the Museum building in bold colors. You’ll see this logo on updated printed materials, signs and throughout the Museum itself. Along with the new logo is the tag line “Experience. Discover. Connect.” Walk through the Museum and experience the rich heritage of our past. Discover things about the local area, Okaloosa County and the Panhandle you might not have known. Connect with your own personal past in our extensive research library. I know I speak for the entire North Okaloosa Historical Association board when I say we’re excited about our progress throughout the New Year.
Tracy Curenton
I would like to thank North Okaloosa Historical Association member and local historian, Mark Curenton for his recent monetary donation to the museum. Donation's help the museum keep our doors open and are always appreciated. Volunteers are always needed. If you are interested stop by the museum or call us at 850-537-5714.
Ann Spann The Baker Block Museum is a 501-3 (c) non-profit organization by North Okaloosa Historical Society, Inc., and is directed by its Board of Directors. The Museum newsletter is published by the North Okaloosa Historical Society, Inc., and is an authorized publication for distribution to Museum members and visitors. Contents of the newsletter is copyrighted, all rights reserved. Items to be considered for the newsletter may be submitted to the museum at P.O. Box 186, Baker, FL 32531 or emailed to bakermuseum@aol.com. Deadline for submission is March 15, June 15, Sept. 15 and Dec. 15 for consideration in the next quarterly issue. Articles received after the deadline will be considered for future use. All submissions will be edited for accuracy, clarity, brevity and conformance with newsletter guidelines.
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Induction Ceremony May 18, 11 a.m.
Reception following
The annual Family Heritage Wall of Honor
Who is eligible: Individuals who lived or wor ked in Okaloosa County, made a contribution for the ceremony is scheduled for May 18. Nominations for formation or positive enhancement to the community this year’s program are due to the Museum no later are eligible to be nominated. Individuals may be than 3 p.m. April 30. nominated posthumously. Assistance with family Honorees will be inducted to the Family Heritage history for the nomination application is available in Wall of Honor at a ceremony May 18. Names will be the Museum research library. added to the Wall of Honor board on display at the Requirements: Each nomination must include a Museum. Names, biographies and photographs will one-page biography and a 5x7 photograph along with be included in the Wall of Honor binder, also at the a nomination fee of $30 for a single individual or $50 Museum, as well as appear in the Fall newsletter. for a dual or family nomination.
A nomination form and sample biography can be found on the Museum website under the Family History Wall of Honor link at bakerblockmuseum.org.
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Winter 2019
Experience. Discover. Connect
Gathering together to sing By Julia Cadenhead
Prevailing culture of the early, rural to mid-20th century southeastern United States, especially in Northwest Florida, was not so much a civic mentality, but more individualist in nature. Many individual denominational churches held their own all-day singing events. Attendance at those events might be determined by whether or not there was preaching before the singing. It seemed folks had a practical nose for what fit their beliefs and needs and what didn’t. It was sometimes the case that those wishing to sing simply People come together to sing at the Crowder Chapel Homecoming Sing in the attended their own morning worship service and traveled to a 1980s. location for afternoon singing session, distances harmony, and the Christian message. permitting, of course. There was a convenient means of selecting Human nature being the same yesterday as they meeting dates: the fifth Sunday or first Sunday are today, and no police precincts in every singings covered the annual schedule without having community, it was more secure to be with people you to re-advertise or adjusting dates. Sometimes groups knew—a subtle policing action in many ways. And, would have a memorial sing for a particular family or where better to gather than at church. a community elder. Groups often put a notice in the local newspaper announcing the time and date of a A Baptist might not believe in getting the Holy singing in the area. But small groups of neighbors or Ghost but could still sing “In the Sweet By and By” with the Pentecostal sitting nearby. The back-slider, family members were also pleased to meet at someone’s house on a weekend afternoon to could sing alongside his nephew who believed in eternal security. They weren’t talking doctrine; they harmonize and sing together. were enjoying the meter of the song, sound of the
Shape note singing takes root in Florida Shape note singing began taking root in Florida in the mid-19th century near the time of the publication of The Sacred Harp songbook, a songbook printed in shaped notes. The Stamps-Baxter tradition of singing is a distant relative of Sacred Harp, a unique tradition, and helped popularize their shape note
songbooks. This shape note style of singing was strongest in the Panhandle area and later became popular in Central Florida. The West Florida Sacred Harp Singing Convention is the state’s earliest shape note convention on record. In August of 1927, an all-day
singing convention in Escambia County, Florida, attracted some 2,000 to 3,000 people who came from south Alabama and several west Florida counties to attend this event. Singing began at 9 a.m. and lasted until 3 p.m. By Julia Cadenhead
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A sign announcing scheduled singing on Friday nights is on display in the Baker Block Museum. The news article above from the 1916 Pine Belt News in Alabama and the local 1974 Playground Daily News note to the right are typical of shape note singing announcements.
The Florida Department of Transportation resurfaces the parking area during the fall of 2018 in front of the Baker Block Museum as part of the State Road repaving project. The Museum will add parking stripes later this year.
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Experience. Discover. Connect
End of an era Cane syrup pours out of the Youngblood family mill for the last time
David Youngblood, left, and his brother DeWayne closely monitor cooking sugarcane juice to produce their final batch of cane syrup Nov. 17, 2018. (Photos courtesy David Youngblood)
By Stephanie Holcombe
biscuits, sausages, pancakes and other breakfast food.
The Youngblood family of the Cane syrup is not as sweet as Escambia Farms area in north granular sugar, but sweeter than Baker fired up their sugarcane syrup mill for the last time Nov. 17 molasses, which is made from a ending a family tradition that lasted second boiling of sugarcane juice. for more than half a century. But eating doesn’t begin until after the oven is heated up, the On syrup day, generations of sugarcane is crushed and the the family gathered around while boiling juice turns into thick syrup, the mill produced gallons of thick a process that starts before the sun amber liquid to pour over hot
comes up. Very early on syrup day, the oven is fed with lighter wood, pine wood with rosin that creates an extra hot fire. So hot, that at times flames would shoot out of the top of the chimney, said David Youngblood Jr. who makes syrup once a year with his brother DeWayne. “I planned to start at 4 a.m.,”
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said Youngblood. That’s the time his father, David Ray Youngblood, started his two-week process of turning sugarcane into syrup each year. Once the family starts arriving, the work really begins. Sugarcane is fed into a belt-run mechanical cane press turned by a tractor where it is crushed to release the juice within. Cane juices drip through a strainer, down a series of pipes and into a large rectangular cooking vat striped with baffles where the juice Flames shoot out of the chimney during syrup making at the Youngblood cane mill. is boiled to produce This final cooking produced 50- cane,” Youngblood said. “It gets syrup. to-55 gallons, according to harder to do every year.” During the cooking process, Youngblood, as compared to 88 And with little interest in syrup homemade pushers are used to push gallons produced last year. making from the younger the juice between the baffles from Born in 1948, Youngblood generation, there’s no one to carry one end of the vat to the other began working beside his father, on the tradition. where it thickens into syrup. David Ray Youngblood Sr., since So with 50 or 55 gallons of The syrup is then drawn off and he was 5 years old. homemade syrup in November, the drips through a second strainer to They would work for two Youngblood family let the oven later fill pint-sized jars. weeks straight, cutting sugarcane, cool for the last time. “Ninety gallons a day, we’re crushing it and turning the cane looking at a pretty good day,” juice into thick syrup. Youngblood said. “You have to cut the cane before the first frost,” Youngblood said, otherwise, the plant won’t be good for syrup making. As the Youngblood brothers have gotten older, the sugarcane field has gotten thinner. Tilling the weeds from the denser cane field was done by hand, Youngblood said. As he aged, the rows became wider to allow for mechanical tilling, which reduced the sugarcane yield and syrup production. “It takes a lot of work to raise
David (left) and DeWayne Youngblood
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Experience. Discover. Connect
Lube dispenser The Museum’s newest acquisition is an early 1900s Model1252 Lincoln Gear oil dispenser, donated by David Youngblood in December. This particular oil can was owned by Alan Sloan who owned and operated the store in Blackman for many years. During the early years, the store had a hydraulic automobile lift and did some limited auto repairs and servicing, according to Youngblood.
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Experience. Discover. Connect
Calendar of Events JANUARY S
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FEBRUARY
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MARCH F
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13 14 15 16 17 18 19
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
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20 21 22 23 24 25 26
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
27 28 29 30 31
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24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
17 North Okaloosa Historical Association Board meeting, 6 p.m. 19 Museum open from 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m. 21 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (federal holiday)
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Super Bowl Sunday
16 Museum open from 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m. 18 Presidents Day (federal holiday) 21 Okaloosa County Museum Coalition visit, 10 a.m. 21 North Okaloosa Historical Association Board meeting, 6 p.m.
10 Daylight Savings Time begins 16 Museum open from 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m. 20 First day of Spring 21 North Okaloosa Historical Association Board meeting, 6 p.m.
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Experience. Discover. Connect
Winter 2019
Stop by the Baker Block Museum exhibit at the Laurel Hill Arts & Heritage Festival to pick up heritage books, Okaloosa calendars and other Museum publications.