RADFORD  – When six-year-old Laura was touring The Farmhouse at Selu, a replica of a 1930’s farm, she learned about plants, geology specific to the area, gardening, bee-keeping, the social aspects of entertaining and an old tried and true food from that era – leather britches. In an essay, she writes, “In the kitchen we got greasy fingers after we touched the side meat. The dried beans were called leather britches even though they didn’t look a thing like pants made out of leather.”

Laura is just one of hundreds that tour the farmhouse each year. Since the beginning of the year, 10 group tours and two orientation tours for volunteers have been conducted. In the last three years, the Farmhouse at Selu has been an inside and outside learning experience for RU classes, area school students, 4-H clubs, RU and family reunions, the Adventure Club, the university’s Our Turn programs and more.

Located at Selu’s C. E. Richardson Heritage Park, the house features a kitchen, living room, parlor, boys’ bedroom and an area for quilting. There’s a hand-cranked corn sheller and corn cracker on the kitchen porch and the front porch displays tools and a dismantled beehive. Visitors can enjoy an outside tour of the grounds and take a 45-minute hike to Big John’s Laughing Place, an observation area that overlooks Little River.

Appalachian Studies and English instructor Ricky Cox conducts some of the tours and himself being raised in the rural area of neighboring Floyd County, his expertise is invaluable. “Life in the 1930’s was “green” before that term was applied to economic or environmental choices.  Farm families in this region weren't wasting any electricity because there was none to waste. They got up with the sun and went to bed not long after it went down, and did it all over again the next morning,” Cox says.

Fifteen volunteers assist Cox on the tours and as many as seven do interpretive programs on any given day. Volunteers include RU students; alumni; current and retired faculty from social work, nursing, English, information technology and biology; retirees, a minister and locals, all of whom help bring the farm to life for visitors. On June 1, two fourth grade classes from Indian Valley Elementary School in Floyd County received a morning tour and hike to the river.

One of the greatest contributors to the farmhouse success was Ray Dickerson who passed away in May of this year. Dickerson spent part of his childhood on the farm and contributed information as well as items that are being used in the house and on the grounds including a corn sheller used for every group visit and the lantern and cherry pitter that were used in the original farm house.

Cox says, “The Dickersons were sharecroppers for the Bowles family of North Carolina who had, by that time, inherited the property from the Peters brothers, Will and Solace. Through the agency and great personal generosity of John H. Bowles the Bowles family gave the land – almost 400 acres – to the RU Foundation, Inc., 20 years ago.”

A lady’s purse, neckties, enamel kitchen items, and shoes from the period, as well as wash pans and a washstand are among the items needed to make the homestead more complete and authentic.

To learn more about the Farmhouse at Selu and uses for donated funds, e-mail Cox at rcox@radford.edu.