A look of contentment spread over Paul McEwen’s face as he relished his first bite of warm apple dumpling Saturday at the Hay Creek Apple Festival.
“Mmmm, they’re delicious,” he said.
“That’s why we come here,” chimed in his daughter, Kari Rozette.
The fall festival and flea market on the grounds of historic Joanna Furnace supports the Hay Creek Valley Historical Association, which owns and operates the former iron-making complex in Robeson Township.
The annual event has become a family tradition for McEwen and his wife, Jane; their daughter and her husband, Don Rozette; and the Rozettes’ daughters, Dale, 2, and Kennedy, 4.
The Robeson Township family shared some of the pastry-wrapped apple delicacies at a picnic table outside the furnace’s former mule stable.
They also bought some apple goodies to take home.
From fresh-pressed apple cider to fritters, pies, crisps, dumplings and more, if it was made with apples, the festival had it.
Inside the old stable-turned-meeting-hall, only those few patrons with seemingly bottomless bellies clamored for seconds at the all-you-can-eat apple pancake breakfast.
One serving of the rib-sticking flapjacks and a side of hearty country sausage was enough to stuff Sharon and Robert Lackovic and their daughter, Jennifer, all of Downingtown, Chester County.
The family of collectors learned of the festival from a friend and came primarily for the flea market.
Both mother and daughter collect and sell antique and vintage buttons and were hoping for some rare finds.
Jennifer set off before her parents rose from the table and soon returned with a vintage cookbook to add to another of her collections.
Opposite the old stable, volunteers watched over bubbling cauldrons of soup, suspended from wooden tripods over open fires.
Standing a safe distance from the flames, volunteer Jonathan Bean dipped the long-handled wooden stirring paddle into an enormous kettle swinging from an iron chain and arc-shaped hanger, called a bail.
A relative newcomer to the soup crew, Bean knew little about its history. Oldtimers, though, directed the inquisitive to Susan Sparr McMullen.
McMullen’s sister, Shirley Sparr McGowen, and their mother, Mabel D. Sparr, started the soup-making effort about 40 years ago.
The fundraiser predates the festival and began with kettles outside the Friendship Fire Company of Geigertown, McMullen said, but has always benefitted Hay Creek and the furnace restoration.
The soup crew started meeting in August, gathering weekly to chop the vegetables and precook the meats for the chicken-corn-noodle, ham-and-bean, and beef-vegetable soups and chicken pot pie, she said.
Hay Creek typically sells about 60 kettles filled with 45 quarts each, or 675 gallons of soup, over the course of the two-day festival.
Many of those involved are Sparr family members.
“We’re keeping up Momma’s tradition,” McMullen said.
The family has a special connection to the Joanna property, she said, noting her paternal grandfather, John Sparr, owned the furnace’s last mule team and housed the animals in the old mule stable.
The event also offered a chance to see an early 20th century apple cider press at work. The fresh, unsweetened cider squeezed from the apples by the press also was offered for sale.
Wagon rides and other family activities were a hit with young and old, and an apple bakeoff saw contestants competing in adult and youth divisions in four categories: breads/cakes, cookies, pies and miscellaneous.
Attendees could also buy a variety of apples from Weaver’s Orchard of Robeson to take home.
The two-day festival continues Sunday, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Source: Berkshire mont