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After learning about etiquette at the Colonial Tea party at St. George's Episcopal Church, Hannah Doolson teams up with Nicholas Brunacci for a dance.
Alison Smith, 5, watches as tea and etiquette consultant Martha Crimmins of Perfect to a Tea fills a cup at the Colonial Tea party.
Tina Buchanan runs to the kitchen for refreshments during the party. The girls shared pink tea and etiquette pointers while moms enjoyed traditional black tea. |
Knowing proper etiquette was the key to admission into polite society in 18th-century America.
Even young girls were taught how to serve tea, dance and play games.
Yesterday, about 25 Fredericksburg-area mothers and daughters got to step back in time for a taste of life in those days, thanks to the Fredericksburg Area Museum and Cultural Center.
They sipped almond-scented black tea or pale pink herbal tea from china cups, learned the dance steps to Morning Gazette and tried their hand at a variety of games and crafts as part of the museum's second annual Colonial Tea.
"It's a nice mother-daughter thing," said Dawn Ellison of Stafford County as her daughter, Lindsey, and friend Alison Smith, both 5, played Scotch Hoppers in the basement of St. George's Episcopal Church in downtown Fredericksburg.
"We left the boys at home, so it's special," agreed Lynn Smith, Alison's mother.
The tea party began with a brief talk by Martha Crimmins, a Fredericksburg tea and etiquette consultant certified by the Protocol School of Washington.
"How many of you have been to a tea?" asked Crimmins, whose business is called Perfect to a Tea.
A few of the girls seated around linen-clad tables raised their hands.
"How many of you have had tea parties?" asked Crimmins.
This time, a flurry of hands went up.
"Tea parties are a nice way to meet our friends and spend a rainy day like today," she said.
Crimmins gave them a brief background on black tea, which originally came from China, and herbal teas or "tisanes," which can be made from a variety of plants.
"Is your tea black like your mother's?" Crimmins asked the girls. "Your tea is sort of pink, isn't it? That's from cranberries."
As plates of finger sandwiches filled with pink cream cheese, mini-cupcakes with white frosting and cookies dusted with pink and green sugar were passed out, the tea mistress instructed everyone to save the sweets for last.
"That's proper etiquette," she said.
Afterward, the girls got to try their hand at a variety of games with a little help from members of the Rappahannock Colonial Heritage Society, a local living-history group.
Eight-year-old Hannah Dodson of Spotsylvania County flipped two pieces of string with a metal disk in the middle over and over. But when she pulled the strings, the disk spun a few turns and then stopped.
Ten-year-old society member Nicholas Brunacci came to her rescue, showing her how to flip the string fast, then pull it back and forth. The toy, called a "whizzer," vibrated and spun.
"That was fun!" Hannah said.
One table over, Emily Quintana, 10, of Fredericksburg tossed the dice and moved her game piece a few squares in The Royal & Most Pleasant Game of A Goose, one of the first board games. She said she liked it because it takes a long time to play.
"If you landed on a goose, you had to go all the way around again," Emily said.
The last portion of the party was reserved for dancing. Society members asked the girls to stand in two lines facing each other, and taught them the steps to an 18th-century dance called Morning Gazette. Some of the younger girls giggled as they tried to form an arch with their arms that was high enough for older girls to duck under.
Knowing how to dance was considered so important in the 18th century that school would be canceled for three or four days whenever an itinerant dance master arrived at a plantation, said Elaine Sturgeon, the society's dance mistress.
Dancing also was one of the few social activities where women could be physically active, and it gave girls a chance to mingle and flirt with potential suitors.
"Dances were one of the places where you'd present your daughter," she said. "And everyone would be sizing up the young gentlemen. You could tell if they had any physical impairments."
To reach CATHY JETT:
Email: cjett@freelancestar.com
