Tiny hands place a homemade doll in front of Cean Coyle’s 1904 Singer sewing machine. Cean takes the money for the doll but before she can even place it in a bag, the small girl snatches it in a bear hug.
All Cean can do is smile.
Just past the hustle and bustle of the midway and the candy apples stands a “hidden treasure” in the annual state fair, according to yarn spinner, Anne Allison. It is a place where women wear bonnets and dresses that look like tablecloths. Men sport suspenders and thick beards and carve handmade furniture. The Village of Yesteryear is often overlooked by fairgoers, but still brings in customers. Located in the Holshouser Building, close to the lake, it could easily be missed. The round building hosts people from every region of North Carolina and beyond in the skills of the generations before them. There are furniture makers, weavers, painters and even doll makers. Schotsi Creech, from Saxapahaw, is a refined milliner. Millinery is the construction and redecoration of hats, according to Schotsi. Specializing hats from the 1600s to the 1920s, she said hat making is a multi-step process. She starts with buckram, a flexible material used to shape the interlining of hats before being covered with fabric to make anything from a 1600 cavalier hat to the pilgrim hat. According to Schotsi, styles of hats come and go. She said the tricorne, a hat worn during the Revolutionary War, made a reappearance in the 1900s with pirates. Schotsi said her place at the fair is just like many of the hats she sells. She will be back next year. “It’s so much fun that you have to come back,” Schotsi said. Standing at Schotsi Creech’s side is her brother, Walter Creech, a painter who has been coming to the fair for five years. His paintings encompass all of North Carolina’s scenery, from the mountains to the coast, including the Bell Tower. “I paint what I know,” Walter said.
He said he likes to take a different perspective in his art than has ever been done before. Walter said his angle of the Bell Tower was like no other painting he had seen before, and in the background stands a “daylight moon.” Walter also said he enjoys painting nighttime scenes because they tend to be ignored. Allison is a veteran of the Village of Yesteryear. She and her husband spin and weave fibers from their home in Old Fort, N.C. Allison said she tends to focus more on spinning while her husband runs their pre-1750 loom. According to her, men were traditionally the loomers, and they both like to keep tradition. While Allison said she taught classes at the Biltmore House and had been to museums throughout the state, the fair was still overwhelming. According to her, the Village was like a family as she pointed to a tatter –someone who makes homemade lace — at a furniture-making booth. The tatter was stepping in for the furniture maker, who had to attend a funeral.
“We watch out for each other,” Allison said. Cean and Jack Coyle agreed the Villagers have to care for one another. The Coyles own a doll-making company in Oxford, Georgia — Coyle’s Toyles. This is a part-time business that has been going on for 15 years, according to Cean.
One of the things Cean said drew in younger crowds was the “Make It Take It” area of their booth where kids can create their own dolls from everything to the artwork, stuffing and hand-cranking of the 1887 Singer sewing machine. Jack said he loves working with kids and getting them excited about doing something besides sitting around.
Coyle’s Toyles mainly sells two types of dolls, according to Cean. She said the Raggedy-Ann Dolls are their best seller, but the most unique are the Topsy-Turvy Dolls.
The Topsy-Turvy Dolls originated in the South during the Civil War era and have a white doll on one side and a black doll on the other that can be changed at the flip of a dress.
The reason students don’t even realize the Village of Yesteryear exists, according to Gloria Hardy, a freshman in education, is people think it is boring or for old people. She said it is located too far towards the back of the fair, separated from the rides.
Hardy said she stops there every year because it is interesting to see the homemade crafts. It is important, according to her, to remember people’s heritage, especially because people grew up doing things like this at one time.
Hardy said she recommends the Village of Yesteryear to all students.
“Check it out. What do you have to lose?” she said.
