I recently visited Old World Wisconsin with my husband and two boys. It was a day trip I planned and I was definitely the most excited. At first I felt a little like I was dragging them all along for one of my adventures, but once we saw a demonstration at the blacksmith shop everyone seemed genuinely interested. Then I got to stamp a bookmark at the leather shop, and try an old-timey bike, and…
I’d been wanting to return to the historical location because I remembered it being inspiring as a little girl when I went so many years ago. We had watched someone shred and mash cabbage to make sauerkraut. Once we got home, we actually all made sauerkraut as a family back when I was little girl.
When we went this time, we saw the process being done just like it was decades ago, and of course decades before that.
Below are pictures from my recent trip, and an excerpt from my book! To read more excerpts, become a Pen Pal here.
Click through the slideshow below to see the process for making sauerkraut!
(Below is an excerpt from my book, a current work in progress (pages 119-120 & 129-133) Please do not share outside of the Annie Lynn Club. Thanks! ©️2026 To read more excerpts- Join Annie’s Club
***Sauerkraut***
Craig visited his Grandma weekly. He’d chat with her in the second story apartment that looked the same as it did when our family would have Sunday brunch with Rose. He collected her stories about her past, while I was at dance class down the street. Sometimes, Dad would record them talking just like he used to do, capturing conversations when Bud and Myrtle were alive. I could imagine how Dad and Rose talked.
“What’s that?” Rose asked, pointing at Craig’s small handheld recorder.
“It helps me write your stories down Grandma,” Craig answered.
“Oh, I see.” Rose said, sitting back comfortably in her recliner chair with her arms resting on the sides.
Craig looked down at his yellow legal pad, and flipped a page from behind over to see where they left off from the last time.
“Tell me more about living on the farm,” Craig said.
“What part?” Rose replied with a laugh, as Craig took out his mechanical pencil from his left pocket.
Her voice sounded like an antique rocking chair, moving across wood floorboards on a farmhouse porch, like the ones we once visited in Old World Wisconsin one summer with my Grandma Myrtle and Uncle Bobby. It had a layered creak to it, that required attention as she articulated her words, pulling memories forward from backwards in time, one sentence at a time. My family and I made our own sauerkraut after learning the fermentation process while visiting the triple A destination. Our kitchen table was covered in light green cabbage. The house smelled so strong it stung our eyes when the vinegar seeped into the air as we boiled the vegetable leaves with salt. We used Mom’s massively sized metal pot, that she claimed was large enough to help feed an army. Like the tent, and car top carrier, it may have been acquired from the surplus store too. Mom loved making huge batches of soup in that, and then giving some to her brother Bobby, especially after Grandma died. When the German staple was done, we had glass jars of sauerkraut for topping brats and hotdogs for months.
***
Dad compiled all of Rose’s stories into a book from those talks. He gave it a light pink laminated cover, and called it, Rose. He printed copies that were given a black plastic spiral-bound spine, and gave each of my sisters and I a copy to keep.
(Above is an excerpt from a novel and current work in progress (pages 119-120 & 129-133) Please do not share outside of the Annie Lynn Club. Thanks! ©️2026 To read more excerpts- Join Annie’s Club
More photos from Old World Wisconsin (Dyeing process & gardens) are below.
