4th-Graders Step Back to 1800s on Field Trip

Two classes of fourth-graders from El Rio School are much more appreciative of everyday things such as electric lights, vacuum cleaners and indoor plumbing since their field trip Wednesday to the Stagecoach Inn Museum.

The group of 60 students traveled more than a century back in time, to the days when the Conejo Valley was harsh, arid and populated mainly by cows and sheep.

As the students labored at tasks that were commonplace in the late 1800s, under the watchful eyes of museum volunteers in period costume, they learned that pioneer life in the Old West was a lot more difficult than what they see on such TV shows as “Little House on the Prairie.”

“You had to do more chores, like helping your mom and sometimes your dad, and do lots of housework,” said 9-year-old Krystalle Reyes. Krystalle added that she thought doing laundry using a washboard and tub was more fun than throwing the dirty clothes in the Maytag with a dash of Tide.

Nine-year-old Ricky Ricardez said he was surprised at the amount of work the Conejo Valley’s settlers, like the Newbury family, had to do each day just to survive.

“It was harder and different,” Ricky said. “You had to get water and pick up wood.”

At the replica of Egbert Starr Newbury’s three-room house, which was once on the site of the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, students made biscuits from scratch, swept rugs, polished saddles and snapped string beans.

Elsewhere on the museum’s grounds, packed full of old farm implements and other reminders of the Conejo Valley’s rural heritage, students learned how people kept entertained before the advent of TV and Nintendo’s Game Boy.

The students’ teacher, Mary Lou Almilli, said the museum’s historical reenactments make history come alive and help the children grasp pioneer life in a way that can’t be conveyed in books.

“They [at the museum] do a good job and it’s relatively inexpensive,” she said, adding that funds for field trips are scarce. “It’s very difficult to do field trips these days.”

Jackie Pizitz, the museum’s curator of education and school tours chairwoman, said demand is high for the reenactments and other programs.

“We’re booked two years in advance because we only do the tours on Wednesday,” Pizitz said. “We’re inundated with requests.”

Nine-year-old Megan DiDomizio said she liked elementary school a lot better once she saw what it was like before the turn of the century.

“You don’t have to write words 100 times if they’re spelled wrong,” she said.