Dinsmore Homestead

10/16/2026

Curious what cures people in the 1800s put their faith in?

Ever wondered how family members prepared a body for burial?

Tonight and tomorrow night, October 16 & 17, at the Dinsmore Homestead museum, we will be exploring the various deaths on the farm and how people reacted, what they did to try to prevent death, and how they said good-bye to their loved ones.
Register on our website: www.dinsmorehomestead.org

10/13/2026

Curious about mourning rituals and funerals in the 1800s?
Wondering how people dealt with death and depression?
Do you enjoy visiting graveyards in the dark?

Come on out to Dinsmore for an evening tour that focuses on practices of the past and the medicines people relied on to help them! Visit the graveyard to hear songs that were sung at the funeral of Nancy Mcgruder.

Tours run from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm on Friday and Saturday, October 16 & 17, every half hour. You can reserve a spot online. The cost is only $10 for adults. You don't want to miss this unique look at the past!!
www.dinsmorehomestead.org

10/08/2026

Don't miss our Death at Dinsmore event this October! Listen to the songs sung at the graveside of Nancy Mcgruder--at night! See--but don't ingest--the medicines that people thought would cure them! Discover what people thought would help their depression and how they experienced mourning & death!

A BIG thank you goes out to Brynlee, Grace, Kate, Izzy, Emery (who is getting so old I didn't recognize her), McKenna, and Sam. These St. Henry students spent an afternoon cleaning the gravestones, & the headstones look beautiful now!

Tours will be Friday & Saturday, October 16 & 17, and the following Friday & Saturday, October 23 & 24, from 7-9. You can reserve a spot online: www.dinsmorehomestead.org

Dinsmore Homestead is a historical site where 180 years of artifacts & letters bring history to life.

10/06/2026

Dinsmore Homestead has lost a beloved friend and leader, Barbara Bardes. She has been closely involved with the museum for over 25 years and she will be so greatly missed! Her obituary below is a wonderful tribute to her life and her love for her community. Our thoughts go out to her husband and daughter for their loss.

https://www.cincinnati.com/obituaries/pwoo1577526

09/18/2026

This October--don't miss our evening tours focusing on depression, sickness, and death on the Dinsmore farm! Reserve your spot on our website: www.dinsmorehomestead.org . Or you can call (859)586-6117 for more information.

Dinsmore Homestead is a historical site where 180 years of artifacts & letters bring history to life.

08/23/2026

"Letters from the Attic"

Julia Dinsmore's letters to her nieces, Patty and Sally, often contain tidbits about the neighborhood and about things we can locate in the house. I don't know who Orland Snyder was, but maybe some of our neighbors in Belleview Bottoms do know. For years, Mike Corbin owned the general store Julia shopped at in Belleview, so perhaps F***y is related to him.

April 16, 1884
My darling big baby, [that's Patty]
.. F***y Corbin married her Orland Snyder last Sunday – they were too industrious to quit a week day of course. He has only one eye and as she has virtues enough to fill, think he can never see her faults. Poor thing – she went to the parsonage to be married just as if she had been a servant girl and her mother did n’t even give her a dinner, but they went off somewhere to his kin to dine. After all that hard work hog-killing it was too bad – no wonder F***y left her to cleave unto ‘Bud.’ When I was in Cin. I went to Uncle Al [?] and got the last Atlas and Gazetteer there was in Clarke’s – it even has Bellevue in it, so when I do sn**ch time to read I can understand something about it. You know papa wore out every Atlas he had.

Lord love my baby, your own

08/02/2026

The second week of camp finished up and the hardy campers endured a week of intense heat, but still had fun reenacting history. Thank you to all of the parents, helpers, counselors, and buddy campers who made camp special!

06/25/2026

The first week of camp has finished & boy, were we busy learning about the Dinsmores and history! We still have spots open for our July camp, so if you have children who enjoy being outside, like running around, and love learning, email me at [email protected].

06/21/2026

In June of 1885, Julia Dinsmore wrote about her "pet buzzards" in a letter to her niece, Patty. This year, we have our own pet buzzard and he/she is kind of cute, but Julia describes him better than I could.

June 8, 1885
"Did I tell you about my little pet buzzards in a nest in a hollow log. Cute is n’t the word – but I can’t think of any other that would express them to you. Little white fluffy downy things with jet bills, and one of them that I think must be a rooster buzzard, a gobbler I ought to have said since they are turkey buzzards, rears up in the nest and shakes his little white downy pinions at me and hisses like a goose. I wish you could see them – they are too funny."

05/17/2026

"Artifact of the Month"
The triptych below sits in the room we call Julia's office. It is called "Siva Dance" and the original was painted by John La Farge, an American artist, while visiting Samoa in 1890. The Siva is a dance that tells a story and is usually performed by a young woman. The offset lithograph in Julia Dinsmore's office is a copy of the original watercolor, which is now at the Art Institute Chicago. The original passed through several hands, but the first person to own it after La Farge was Frank Cutcheon, who married Sally, Julia's niece.
How did the lithograph make it to the Dinsmore house? It could have been purchased by Julia, or perhaps Sally made a copy after Frank died. Lastly, it could have been brought to the house by Martha Breasted when she visited Dinsmore in the 1970s and 1980s.