Copake Falls Fun Day

COPAKE FALLS — Time spent exploring vintage toys and games at Copake Falls’ Roeliff Jansen Historical Society Family Fun Day on Saturday, May 18, will be far more than mere child’s play. Just ask board president Lesley Doyel, a well known expert in museum education, who will join fellow board members as she shares her expertise along with valued items from her family’s collection.

Doyel, a part time Copake resident with a masters degree in museum education, teaches a “Hands on History” course to children in New York City and has also taught art at the Parsons School of Design and worked at a number of museums including the Cloisters and the Met.  

Among the items on display at the museum, located just off Route 22 at Route 344 and Miles Road,  from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. will be many from the Doyel’s family “voluminous” collection; her parents were “avid collectors.”  On site will be “antique toys and books, vintage Cub and Girl Scout uniforms  and porcelain headed dolls” including one in a cradle that will be wearing Doyel’s mother’s christening dress.  

As a means of demonstrating how things change, there will be reproduction Teddy Bears inspired by President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, an old package of Animals Crackers with creatures once caged and a new one with “free range” counterparts and a blackboard and chalk to write the old fashioned way.  

Children will also have a hands on experience with such oddities as telephones with dials with finger holes, which did nothing but allow people to speak to one another; an apple corer, peeler and slicer run entirely by hand power;  a wash board; a washing machine; and old fashioned hair curlers that would be heated on the stove. 

Board member Mary Stine will provide old fashioned games — enabled only by a child’s hand and imagination. If they choose, adults who are young at heart, may also take a trip down toy land’s memory lane with jacks, pick up sticks, ball in the cone and even hopscotch. 

A Hidden History Scavenger Hunt will take families to the Old Grist Mill Stone from Robinson Pond and attractions from the old Harlem Line, including the old depot, luggage movers, a crossing sign and the site of the old tracks, which Doyel believes will be “kind of exciting and very real for children.” 

The day can be topped off with a tour of the Copake Iron Works provided by the Friends of Taconic State Park with “demonstrations and a wonderful documentary film” about the facility, which was the reason for the founding of Copake in the mid 1800s.

The free Fun Day, designed to make the society more “family friendly,” was the brainchild of board member Mike Stanke, who will be on hand along with fellow members Milbrey Zelley, vice president; John Strom, secretary; Jane Peck, treasurer;  Nick Fritsch, communications and webmaster; and Robin Bruce.