The stately old Comstock House on Eighth Street has welcomed countless Christmas guests in the 134 years since pioneer attorney Solomon Comstock and his wife, Sarah, moved into their new home. On Saturday, Moorhead and Fargo families can glimpse join their ranks when the state historical site opens its doors for “Home for the Holidays: A Comstock Christmas.”
“Life was really different back then,” Kaci Johnson says — an understatement. “We want to share the kind of experience that the Comstock family’s guests might have enjoyed back when this house was new. Our goal is to capture a little bit of what the holidays would have been like for the Comstocks and their three children.”
Kaci and her partner in the Christmas event, Angela Beaton, are aspiring professionals when it comes to bringing history alive. Both are graduate assistants in North Dakota State University’s public history program, which focuses on preparing professionals to interpret the past in museums, historic sites and other interpretive programs. They work with the Historic and Cultural Society of Clay County at the Hjemkomst Center as part of NDSU’s outreach program.
The Christmas event is their “baby.” The grand house on Eighth is owned and maintained by the Minnesota Historical Society. Early this year, the state group forged a partnership with the local historic society to manage and develop programming to bring more neighbors and visitors to the site – the most distant of the 26 that MHS, based in St. Paul, operates across the state.
Kaci, who has guided Comstock House tours nearly since the collaboration began, can easily reel off facts about the stately structure. She’s involved in compiling facility reports at the Hjemkomst Center to prepare for traveling exhibitions coming up in the years ahead. Christmas with the Comstocks is the second major event she’s helped direct; her first was “Are You Afraid of the Dark: A Comstock Ghost Investigation” in October, which drew capacity crowds to two programs while turning dozens away for lack of space.
Angie is a first-timer at Comstock House. Since signing on at the Hjemkomst in August, she has spent most of her time as an intern has been spent cataloging the Hjemkomst museum’s collections of textiles, clothing, blankets, quilts, dishes, teapots and medical equipment.
Beginning at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, the two – plus volunteers from the colleges and the community – will welcome visitors of all ages to the yellow Victorian house at 506 Eighth Street South. Guests will experience what a Christmas gathering would have been like for the Comstock family and their friends, learn about Victorian parlor games, imagine sitting down to a traditional Christmas dinner, and enjoy the kind of decorations the Comstocks and children Ada, Jessie and George would have used to deck the halls.
Kaci and Angie researched the décor and made many of the baubles and garlands themselves. The pine tree in the back parlor is hung with modern recreations of Dresden ornaments and the decorated paper cones that delighted youngsters in days of yore. Back then, they were filled with simple delights – candy, nuts, a bright shiny penny or two. “A penny went a lot further then,” Angie observes.
Garlands and ribbons brighten the iron fence and porch rails outside. A replica of the Victorian “kissing ball” – a sphere of mistletoe – hangs over the front door.
Then as now, music was a big part of the special season. Guests will hear carols by the MSUM choir indoors and out (as the weather allows), along with Concordia College’s trombone trio.
In the parlor, children will be introduced to Victorian parlor games – a staid tradition from the days before video games dominated their attention. The games are simple thinking challenges like “Bird, Beast or Fish,” in which a handkerchief is tossed from side to side around a circle, tagging the catcher to name a critter in the specified category. They’ll also get their chance to try charades, called “Riddles” back in the day.
Sarah Comstock’s original recipe for a favorite holiday treat, ginger cookies, turned up when Angie and Kaci dug through the archives. They’ll not only have duplicates of her handwritten “receipt” on hand to share: Visitors will get to taste the vintage recipe, along with sugar cookies and hot chocolate provided by the Red Raven.
The dining table is set as it would have been when Sarah served the traditional Christmas feast. There will be no goose to carve on Saturday, of course, but a typical Victorian menu has been printed to perhaps give guests ideas for their own holidays.
HCSCC program director Matt Eidem says the Christmas event fulfills part of the mission the two historical organizations envisioned last winter. “Our goal was to establish ourselves here as an attraction.” He adds, “Back when I was a student at Concordia for four years, I didn’t even know this place existed. We’re changing that.”
He and the Hjemkomst-based staff and interns have gone beyond offering tours of the house on weekends from Memorial Day through early autumn. It has hosted monthly events since September, including talks and musical recitals by Concordia students. After Christmas, Eidem says, talks are planned on Moorhead women’s clubs from 1880 to 1950, and archivist Mark Peihl will be presenting a program on the city’s notorious saloon district. Angie herself is planning a program on Jessie Comstock’s service as a Red Cross nurse during World War I for the 100th anniversary of U.S. entry into the war. A second season of yoga classes is planned next summer, along with a second annual beer and lawn games party.
Tickets for “Home for the Holidays: A Comstock Christmas” may be purchased in advance online at Eventbrite.com or at the door.
