By Jennifer Moody
Albany Democrat-Herald | Posted: Sunday, May 6, 2007 12:00 am
Women with loose morals are leading astray impressionable Brownsville girls, insisted Clara Roundbottom, and it's time the Anti-Flirt Club took a stand.
But her words were overshadowed by the arrival of glamorous silent-film star Mary Pickford and the cast of "The Curse of the Mummy," who set up shop behind the Moyer House to begin filming.
Add the distractions of Auntie Olga of Romania, a young tough from the Capone family and the antics of the Saggy Bottom Gang, and visitors to "Carriage Me Back" didn't have much time to think about the dangers of gloveless women.
More's the pity, sniffed Roundbottom, who goes by Nan VanSandt when she's not acting in the city's annual historic pageant, now in its 16th year.
"They wear no gloves," Roundbottom tutted to Auntie Olga, a.k.a. Patti Linn, as visitors paused outside the Moyer House. "They hold hands with men. And -" her voice rose, scandalized - "they drive cars!"
"All zees hooba-hooba," Olga agreed.
The pageant continues from noon to 4 p.m. today, featuring carriage rides and tours of the historic Moyer House. Tickets are $7 for adults and $3 for children, and proceeds support restoration projects at the house and Linn County Historical Museum.
This year's pageant asked its usual cadre of local volunteers to don the attire and attitudes of 1924 Brownsville, when flappers and silent films were all the rage.
The Saggy Bottom Gang - known in more recent times as Gary Timms, Don Lyons and Clint Taskinen - lurked nearby, hoping for a handout, as visitors climbed aboard a horse-drawn carriage outside the museum.
At the Moyer House, tourgoers grinned as bodyguards of Tony Capone (Ben Ervin) tried to convince their tough-talking friend to go by "Merrill" so as not to give himself away.
On the set, director Caleb Owen stomped and raged, trying to bully a more convincing moan from his mummy, who groused that talking pictures hadn't yet been invented.
And in the drawing room, friends and relations of the "Thompson family" whispered about Mrs. Thompson's new beau ("She's twice his age!" "The floozy!").
Women's roles were changing rapidly in 1924, which did prompt a public feud between people like Pickford, an early feminist, and those who wanted to "go back to the way it was before," said Caitlin Baxter, 20, who was playing the famous film star.
But Baxter, who has been acting in the pageant since she was 8, said the annual event is a lot more about entertainment than it is about accuracy.
"We do our best, but it's not a bastion of historical information," she said. "We want them to have fun and enjoy Brownsville for what it is."
Despite the pageant flap over modern fashions, Pat Dugan of Milwaukie, who visited in the Saturday-morning chill with her husband, Bill, said she did have a certain item with her.
"I was glad I had mine," she said, lifting a pair of gloves.