Ron and I go back to Frankfort today so that I could take in an antique store I had spied there the other day. It is quite large and includes antiques, flea market stuff and some new stuff. You notice I say "stuff" because some of it was just that. Did find a couple of books (like I need a few more to put in the already full plastic container in the basement and more for the cabinet in the RV), but they were books by a new author I am reading so I feel justified.
We take a tour of the Rebecca Ruth Chocolate Factory which is located in historic downtown Frankfort and has been since 1919. The chocolates are all hand made and wrapped by 7 employees and shipped all over the country. There was even a conveyor belt for the candies and a lady sorting the chocolates much like Lucy and Ethel did on the Lucy Show for those of you old enough to remember that episode.
Rebecca and Ruth were two friends who were substitute teachers who resigned from their jobs and set out on a candy making business a year before women had the right to vote. During prohibition the ladies made candy in a local barroom. Rebecca sold her part of the business to Ruth in 1929. During World War II when sugar was rationed, friends gave Ruth their sugar rations to make her chocolates and recycled metal coffee cans used to put the candy in. During the depression people could not afford to buy candy by the box, so Ruth sold it by the piece. A fire left Ruth with no money, possessions and only the clothes on her back in 1933. She was now a widow with a young child to support. Requesting a $50 loan from the bank to start anew, she was turned down even though she had been running her own business for 14 years. They told her she was a woman and couldn't be trusted because did not have a husband or father to tell her how to spend the money. Fanny Rump, a widow who was a hotel housekeeper, when she heard Ruth's story, loaned her her life savings ($50) and Ruth was able to pay her back in just a few months.
The long and short of it is that the business is still thriving and today is owned by Ruth's grandson Charles and his family who still work in the business. Oh, I forgot to tell you that after the tour and learning Ruth's history and seeing her many antiques, you get a sample of one of her signature candies. Our choice was the Mint Kentucky Colonel Chocolate which was so rich and delicious that we bought a small box of them.
Ruth; however, is known for being the first to make Chocolate Bourbon Balls when someone commented in her presence that there was nothing better than a sip of Bourbon and a bite of Ruth's Mint Kentucky Colonel Chocolate. After two years of experimenting, she came up with the "Bourbon Balls" whose recipe is still today a secret. They are delicious as we had one yesterday at the Buffalo Trace Distillery. They make the bourbon balls for Buffalo Trace and other local distilleries.
After leaving the candy company, we stop in at the Elks Lodge which is in an old building in the old part of Frankfort and sandwiched between two other old buildings on a side street. The Lodge has a nice lounge and we were told they also have a bowling alley and billards and card room on one of the three floors above the street level. Our hamburgers (fat and well prepared) and cokes were delicious fortifying us for our walk around town to see the old buildings and homes. By now, you are probably tired of seeing all the old houses I put in this blog, but they are all so different and the same. It is interesting to learn when they were built and who actually lived in them originally. Some of the buildings dated to the 1870 and 80's and houses even earlier.
We would love to return to Kentucky again as there is still so much we did not have time for. It is a very green state with lots of horses and white fences and barns, at least in this part of Kentucky where horse raising and racing are so much a part of life here.
Thursday, August 13, 2015
We leave Whispering Hills RV Park around 9:30 this morning headed for Tennessee. There is no interstate highway that goes diagonally across the state, but there are a number of "Parkways" with limited access which do the job well. Someday, we see by a sign, they plan to make all of these "Parkways" into I-69. Right now going from one to another means leaving one down a ramp and entering another one. The road is quite smooth except over the many bridges and there are numerous places where construction work is in progress to update and/or improve the roadway.
We will stay overnight in Union City, TN which is just over the border from Kentucky. Tomorrow we will actually travel in three states before getting to our destination of North Little Rock where we plan to spend a couple of days.
One of the interesting plants growing in Kentucky and a bit in Virginia which we had never seen growing before is Tobacco. In some places there are small fields of it and in others there are acres and acres. From what I have read about tobacco, it appears that the stalks here are nearly ready to be cut with leaves attached and to be cured. Tobacco in Kentucky is fire cured which means that the stalks are hung for from 10-13 weeks . This type of tobacco is used in some chewing tobacco, moist snuff and a condiment in pipe tobacco blends. Sun dried tobacco is used in cigarettes. So now you know all you didn't want to know about tobacco.
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