Having just figured out how to put pictures on our blog that have been sent to us from other missionaries, we will post them all now, as we can't figure out how to not use them all.
This series is of a tour that I was giving at the Times and Seasons/ Nauvoo Neighbor building. They were taken by Elder Germer, my companion for the day. This whole building ( as most of the sites we give tours in ) is the actual 175 year old building, not a replica.
The first thing we do is explain to the guests that the "compositor" is the chief person in the print shop. He composes the story to be printed, at the composing table, a heavy ,solid marble table, taking type from the case. The capitol letters he takes from the "upper case" and the small letters from the "lower case" behind him. The type is placed in a composing stick and then transferred to the "galley", which is the "column" of the newspaper. After a sentence or two are formed in the galley, then the compositor stops and inks and prints a preliminary copy of that set to date. He then has someone else proof read to make sure that if there are errors, they can be corrected immediately. This is very important to do now, rather than wait until the whole column is finished, as each piece of type is a different size and if an error is detected the whole phrase must be totally dismantled to make space for the correct type size. (We often mention that it is also instructive that as we detect errors (sins) in our own lives, it is so much easier to correct them sooner than later, when habits have been formed and we then have to invoke the Atonement of Jesus Christ with its attending remorse and disruption of our lives.)
We also explain several printing terms, such as moveable type verses stereotypes, Quioning a phrase, furniture, spacers, minding your P's and Q's, dingbats, the chase (cutting to the chase). In the photos above and below we can see the case which contains all the type, behind me to the right. On top of the case can be seen the lower and upper cases. Immediately behind me can be seen a rack containing all the furniture. To the far left can be seen the press. This is a true antique 1840 press. To the right (out of the picture) is an 1830 press. These are not the actual presses used in the building in the 1840's, but are true functioning antiques of the period.
We then move over to the press and let the guests acually move the chase into the coffin, demonstrate how they would have inked it with a dauber and breyer, place a sheet of paper into the tympan under the frisket, roll it under the platen, pull the lever to lower the platen, and then placing the printed paper on the racks on the ceiling of the room to dry for 24 hours before printing the other side of the sheet. The moveable type would then be removed and cleaned and "carefully" replaced back into the proper slots in the case by the apprentice called the "printer's devil".
This is when I was serving at pioneer pastimes with Elder and Sister Russell, where children (and adults) play all kinds of authentic games of the 1840's, and we dress them up in pioneer costumes, like we wear.
While serving in the Browning Gun home and manufactory, a guest came in with a "monsterous " camera, obviously a professional. I asked him if he could focus in on a plaque that Jonathan Browning placed on each gun he made. He emailed these pictures to me after he got home. After Jonathan Browning was baptized in 1842, he was such a stalwart in the Church and so converted that he placed a plaque that read: "Holiness to the Lord ---our Preservation" on every gun he made. The plaque is so small and so old on the antique gun that Browning made that it is with great difficulty that anyone has eyes good enough to read it. Now I have an enlarged print of it to use in the tours, so visitors can appreciate Brownings faith and dedication to the Gospel.
These photos are of Rendezvoux where we are singing a song called "Willingly"
This is a photo of Sis. Ririe and I acting out the part of "Peter and Abigail". Here, I am about to find out that she is in the process of getting engaged to someone else(Ezra).
This was a photo sent me by one of the visitors, where I was giving them a tour in the Family Living Center. I am explaining how the Saints in Nauvoo made rope. The fibers in my hand were scratched out of a tall plant stalk, and then spun (as they would do in spinning yarn from wool) into a twine, which then would be mounted onto a machine they had in Nauvoo in the 1840"s. And then we make a rope for them to take home.
This is at the end of the play where I just found out that Sis. Ririe broke off her engagement to "Ezra", and just consented to going with me West.
The above photo, I am being told that "Mrs. Wallace is here to see me. She came all the way to Nauvoo from Warsaw.
This is where I "playfully" catch her in a "lie" of why she came to Nauvoo to see me.
