Relive The Past At Founders' Day

O'Fallon will turn back the clock two centuries this weekend with its fourth annual Founders' Day celebration.

The event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in , Veterans Memorial Parkway and Fort Zumwalt Square. Admission and parking are free. Food and period crafts will be available for purchase.

Founders' Day was created to celebrate the arts and crafts, music, work and play of the 19th century--the era in which the city was founded. "It came about as part of the O'Fallon Community Foundation's plan to rebuilt Fort Zumwalt," said Marsha Seymour, O'Fallon's manager of tourism and festivals. "Plus, it was getting another reason for people to come to Fort Zumwalt Park."

A number of new activities have been added this year. "The O'Fallon Photo Club will be offering old-time photos," Seymour said. "They will have costumes available, and they will take your picture on the porch of the Darius Heald Home."

Other new events include "Sheep to Shawl," in which raw wool is spun into a shawl, along with a beekeeping exhibit and cow milking. "Kids can learn how to milk a cow--not a real cow. This one's made of plywood," Seymour said.

Other activities include old-time games, soap and wood carving, rope and broom making, fire starting, hand quilting and period dancing. "We tried the period dancing last year, and it was a lot of fun," Seymour said.

Tours of the historic Darius Heald Home will be available for $2. The St. Charles Model Railroad Club will offer free admission to view its large train layout. An Arbor Day ceremony, featuring the planting of a fruitless sweet gum tree, will begin at 10 a.m.

You can't have a festival without music. The Lodge Brothers, performing bluegrass, traditional and Celtic selections; Floyd and the Barbers, perfoming bluegrass; and Pat McMenomy, playing the hammer dulcimer, will be at Founders' Day.

Two popular interactive shows will return for the event: award-winning storyteller Jim "Two Crows" Wallen and Madame Rosa's Museum of Natural Oddities.

Madame Rosa is one of many stage names of Dianne Moran. "I started as a naturalist instructor at the Saint Louis Zoo, where I worked for 24 years," Moran said. "I decided to go out on my own, and now I do a lot of living history programs and naturalist programs."

Based on the traveling circus shows of old, Madame Rosa entertains audiences with her large collection of animal bones, skulls and talons, as well as some living specimens.

"I've always had a wildlife collection," Moran said. "Some are reproductions, like the saber-tooth tiger fang."

Moran keeps her menagerie at her home outside Richwoods, Mo., in Washington County. In addition to skulls and teeth, she will bring along some live museum pieces--an 8-foot albino Burmese python and an assortment of smaller snakes.

"I want them to experience the beauty of the animal and the strangeness and how differences can be good," Moran said. "There is beauty in differences."

"She puts on a wonderful program," Seymour said. "She presents it in a manner where children are not afraid. It's a really good family program, and that's what most of the day will be."

Volunteers are needed to assist with the event. To volunteer or to get for more information call 636-379-5507 or email volunteer@ofallon.mo.us.