A former public school teacher, Engle is now facilities manager at Claude Moore Colonial Farm in McLean, which will hold its annual Spring Market Fair on Saturday and Sunday. What is a colonial farm?
We are a living history museum. We focus on the year 1771, because that is the last year of innocence, before the conflicts associated with the Revolutionary War started.
Is your job quite a bit different than running a classroom?
I work on behind-the-scenes stuff. Right now I’m getting the Market Fair set up, and I’m rebuilding a table. I do all kinds of things like tilling the fields, for instance.
So you’ve had to mostly learn on the job?
Yes, but fortunately I grew up with an uncle in Oklahoma, and I spent summers on his farm there.
Is it hard to learn to live like a colonist?
Well, the first time they put me in costume, I came out with the pants on backwards.
What does the farm produce?
We grow tobacco, corn, wheat and rye.
What do you do with the tobacco?
In the 18th century, they had to sell it to the crown. When our tobacco harvest comes, we hang it in the barn to dry, and then when it gets to the consistency of soft leather, you pull between five and eight leaves out at a time and you pull the center vein out of one of the leaves and tie it together on one of the stalks. That’s called a hand. We save some of those for teachers, otherwise they just get turned back into the soil. We also show what tobacco was used for, such as medicine and money.
How long has the farm been in operation?
It was opened in 1973, and in 1980 the farm was going to close because the park service couldn’t afford to keep it running. Then we worked out a partnership and reopened in 1981. We are actually the only privately operated park in the National Park system.
— Susan Ferrechio
