This is the
description of the event from the site: The reenactment will consist of a military parade, volunteers such as the Rough Riders, Buffalo Soldiers, and the "1898" Mayor of Oceanside, will be there along with music horse-drawn carriage rides, and tours of the historical buildings. The Ice Cream Parlor will be open, and other food vendors will be present. The event would be held on September 30-31, 2017.
The Village
is in a small park with a collection of old buildings, many looking like shops
and stores. In the center of the “town center”, surrounded by grass, is a
beautiful white gazebo that bands play in. This was to be the “stage” for our
fashion show, and we would walk around the pavement among the attendees.
According to
the daily schedule, they would have an Exhibition of a Soldier’s Life, and
military camps; a model train exhibit, a parade, a US Marine Corp Band,
dignitaries and speachifications, and of course, a fashion show. That’s us!
I missed
seeing most of the event due to being extremely late in arriving to change into my
costume for the fashion show. It wasn’t because I had the wrong location, due
to the wrong street name being on the event page (because I’d already figured
that out) but because I missed taking my exit.
If anyone is familiar with I-5 and Oceanside, if you miss your exit, you
have to continue 14 miles passing Camp Pendelton, before you get to another
exit to turn around. And I was almost driving on an empty gas tank by then. So
after quickly gassing up, I managed to get to the event, sneaked into a back
gate to unload, and get inside to change. During this time, friends drove my
car up to the parking lot so it wouldn’t continue making that poor horse behind
the carriage nervous who I had parked behind. I hoofed it out to the “town center”
with five minutes to spare.
Our time
period for the fashion show was the 1890s, of course. I had a couple options to
wear, but chose my 1894 blue and white striped seaside dress because we were at
the seaside. And it was much cooler to wear.
I’m
extremely grateful to Nancy & Russell Smith, and Paige Patterson, for
generously allowing me to use their photos for my blog, as we really want to
help promote this event for next year. So please enjoy all these photos they
took.
Shelley, who
ran the fashion show, was also able to set up her Kansas Mercantile shop inside
one of the buildings, and it was the perfect décor for all her goods. She was
quite happy in there.
Our fashion
show was outdoors, with Shelley narrating from the gazebo. We walked out onto
the pathway and around the courtyard with the audience seated around us, while
Shelley read descriptions of our outfits, and details of the style of the 90s.
Our dress
styles ranged from daytime, to leisure activities, to evening dress, and we
even had three men join us.
As I
mentioned, I wore a dress I already had but got to bring my recently recovered
parasol, and show it off. I also interacted with the audience, who asked
questions.
I did have one
minor foobah with my boater hat earlier, as the antique blue ribbon around the
crown had started to shatter, so I tacked on some vintage flowers to cover that
up.
Hopefully
next year the word will get out more about this event, and we’ll certainly come
back. We plan on letting a lot of our costume and reenactor friends know about
it. Shelley already told me she wants me to take over the fashion show so she
can focus on her Mercantile shop.
You can
visit their website here. http://visitoceanside.org/travel-tips/heritage-park-village-museum/
Or check out their Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Heritage-Village-Park/143109015722406
~~Val~~
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