More precisely, the author's remark about playing "Let's Pretend."  You see each year Washington Preservation Inc. provides an activity day in the spring at the farmhouse centered around the Civil War, where we and about 30 volunteers, (we consider them angels) free of charge, spend a day teaching, talking, demonstrating, and providing activities with over 240 students of the Washington area schools, namely fourth-graders.  

We have handouts, activities and crafts that involve all of the students. WPI provides lunch for the volunteers who help us.  We also open the farmstead at the holidays including it on our annual holiday house tour.  This year, Dec. 13, will mark 23 years for the house tour.

In addition, this coming Oct. 2, we will introduce Missouri History Day which will follow the curriculum for all area fourthgraders, to several hundred area students. All free, with activities and handouts, we will have such guests as Osage Indians, William Clark, Daniel Boone, Charlotte Kohmueller, James Owens, Thomas Hart Benton, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Gen. Pershing, Mark Twain and Abraham Lincoln for the students to meet, talk to and hopefully come away inspired by.

Wynn Scheer from the Washington School District has put a tremendous amount of work into helping me organize this event. You see, it's "let's pretend" with a purpose, and one enjoyed by hundreds of area students each year.

Washington Preservation Inc. is looking forward to having the South Point Schoolhouse in the city park as well, nearby but not next to the farmhouse, to be able to provide yearround education about our local history. I'd like to think that its new life in that location will be as useful as the Kohmueller farmhouse has been to our entire community and certainly something better than simply a replacement for porta potties.  

We will continue in our ongoing mission to educate and preserve the culture, history and architecture of the entire city of Washington. We appreciate those like Horn Architects, SkyView, Unerstall Construction and the city of Washington that have already joined us in this mission.

P.S. Could the letter writer please contact me again? I like the idea of markers along the trail giving details about local history a lot! Let's work together on that one!