Naper Settlement is a beautiful place to learn about what it was like back in the early 1890’s. We learned how people use Live, Learn, and Work. There are so many places you could visit. We highly recommend the School house and the Blacksmith. One phrase we learned from the Blacksmith is “ You work, You eat. You don’t work, You don’t eat”. Kids in the school house used to all learn in one room, from kindergarten-8th grade. That’s what surprised us because nowadays, each grade has their own rooms.
Another place we liked was the mansion. We liked it because you could see what was new in those days, for example toilets, electricity, and phones. Another thing that surprised me was that the kids had to wake up early, like at 4:00 a.m. to work on the farm, or do their morning chores, before going to school. To go to school they had to walk about 0.5 miles.
Another place we saw was a log house, which is what travelers used to make settling into Naperville. They had to use at least 15 trunk trees to make their log house. For light, they needed to start a fire, which wasn’t easy, it could take someone up to 2 and a half hours to start a fire. For the adults that like coffee and they want cream, they had to make their cream. It was hard work as it takes about 2-5 hours to mix. Another thing we saw was the old fire trucks they used to have. That’s why we think that Naper Settlement is a great place to learn about the past.
By: Uriel and David, 4th grade students
*Uriel and David not only wrote the article, but chose the pictures, created the media gallery, selected the listing image and published the article with the help of the Schafer Webmaster.
