Wagon train gives kids a taste of the trail
By Holly Zachwlah


The Ohio Bicentennial Wagon Train brings motorized traffic to a crawl along a hill on Rte. 40 in Muskingum County.

Hand me the knickers, please

As for clothing, Molly and Jenni were reather fashionable pioneers. Jenni's long cotton skirt sported a pretty flower pattern, and her white, cotton shirt was more feminine then functional. Molly's outfit was much the same. Both girls wore the required bonnet and weren't at all embarrassed by their pioneer look. "We really, really needed the bonnets," Jenni said. "I thought it would be kind of silly, but I was so much cooler when I wore it because the sun wsn't beating down on my head." The bonnets looked authentic, but they weren't. "My nana bought them on eBay," Jennis said. Nana is Nicki Budin, the girls' grandmother. She and the girls' mother, Pam, went along for the ride too. The pioneers, of course, had to sew their own clothes because ordering on the Internet was a long way off. And clothing for boys? They mostly wore knickers- pants that hit about halfway between the knee and the ankle- and suspenders. Such an outfit seemed to please 4- year old David Sanders, who called his pants shorts. David's family- including parents Beth and Jeff and 7- year old sister Melissa from Marysville- rode the wagons all last week. And they never changed their clothes! They slept in other things, Mrs. Sanders said, but wore the same outfits each day. "That's just like travelers on the original wagon train", Trucksis said. Most of the kids went barefoot then, she said, because they would arrive in Ohio in October and knew they'd need their shoes for winter. And most had just one change of clothes. Sometimes, they'd change and wash what they'd been wearing in a stream or creek. "When you had to worry about the dangers of survival on the trail- getting sick or injured in the middle of nowhere or trampled by a horse- hygiene just wasn't a priority," she said. Cleanliness is next to godliness On the trail, personal cleanliness comes from inside a 2- gallon plastic ice-cream bucket. Chelsea carried her toothbrush, toothpaste and some soap in such a pail. The Kusmas stored their wet wipes and toothbrushes inside a Tupperware container. To brush their teeth, they stood beside their wagon and poured water from their canteens (also a must). Not exactly like home, but it worked.