A day in Canton

Saxton-McKinley House

August 9 – First thing after breakfast I called the First Ladies National Historic Site in Canton to see if we could get on the 10:30 tour.  She said we could and gave us directions to the parking lot as well as to the building.  It’s only about 30 minutes north in I-77 so we arrived in plenty of time.

First we looked at the exhibit in the 1895 City Bank building.  There was a revolving exhibit of miniatures of the First Ladies gowns, interesting information on a number of the First Ladies and samples of some of the

McKinley's chair

Presidential dishes.  When it was our turn we went to the Saxton McKinley House next door that belonged to the Saxton family.  McKinley married one of the Saxton daughters I think and her sister owned the house but they lived there also.  President McKinley and his wife lived there for a time.  The lady giving the tour dressed in period clothing and did a fantastic job on the tour.  There were some pieces that belonged to the McKinleys and she pointed out the changes that had been done to the house in restoring it as closely as possible to how it looked when the McKinleys lived there.  We thoroughly enjoyed the tour.

McKinley Monument

Not far was the McKinley Memorial and Presidential Library and Museum.  The Memorial is huge and he and the First Lady are buried there.  There were lots of runners and joggers doing the stairs.  It was rather peaceful since it was a weekday.  Bill waited in the car while I went in to the gift shop for a couple of post cards.

Just a block up the street from the Memorial is Kennedy’s BBQ.  The ladies at the First Ladies National Historic Site had recommended it.  It’s nothing to look at and has been around since the 1920’s and the family finally sold the place and the recipes to

Bill waiting at the
counter

another restaurant, Taggerts, who still makes the special relish and the smoking and cooking of the meats.  It was very good, tender and moist.  I didn't much care for the relish and couldn't really tell what it was made from.  It was green.  Yum! 

Our last stop in Canton was the Football Hall of Fame.  Bill had been there on one of our prior trips but since it was Inaugural week he wanted to stop at the gift shop.  His Handicapped hanger came in handy as it got us into the lot and a great space.  The workers were there dismantling all

of the out buildings put up for the Inauguration and the “game that didn’t happen”.  They had big trucks all over so the staff was carefully monitoring the incoming traffic and were re-routing to a lot some place and they shuttled most people in.   We did some photos and some shopping.  Wow, that’s some expensive stuff and lots of it.  No team went without!

Recycling but they were both out on trucks.  We really hadn’t notified the whole family since our plans were not made too far in advance. 

 

Me, Wendy,Aunt Donna
and Diane

Larisa had sent me a text about a letter I needed to do for work so we came home I did the letter and forwarded to Kerry for tweaking.  I called cousin Becky to see what time she wanted us to come over for dinner.  Diane and Aunt Donna stopped by with another cousin, Wendy.  We caught up a bit and had a nice visit.  I’m hoping Diane and Wendy will come to Florida for a visit as they are both “retired”.

 

We had a nice dinner with Becky and Greg and lots of good conversation.  Seems at our ages a lot of the conversation revolves around health issues.  How sad is that? 

We got a bit of rain on the way home, which everyone in the area needs.  Everywhere we visited in the NE was really dry.  It’s very sad to leave tomorrow.  I would have liked to spend more time with my family.