{"id":6274,"date":"2021-01-03T15:17:52","date_gmt":"2021-01-03T21:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/?p=6274"},"modified":"2021-01-03T15:29:59","modified_gmt":"2021-01-03T21:29:59","slug":"romantic-weekend-getaway-and-the-bily-clocks-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/?p=6274","title":{"rendered":"Romantic Weekend Getaway and the Bily Clocks Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

36 years ago December 30 (1984) MFH asked me to marry him.\u00a0 Well actually the conversation went something like, I guess we should get married. I agreed, Yup!\u00a0 I mean time was short because we were in the middle of watching a rerun of Maverick on a B&W television and the commercial break was almost over.\u00a0 The commercial ended and 5 months later in May of 1985,\u00a0we were married.\u00a0 Who says romance is dead?<\/p>\n

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On the spur of the moment, MFH (My Favorite Husband) and I decided to take a little romantic weekend getaway.\u00a0 #1 Son has been here for a visit and he agreed to watch Chester and Castro so we were free to skip town and do a little trip we’ve been wanting to take.\u00a0 We packed and turned the car north towards Decorah, Iowa.<\/p>\n

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Bear in mind this was New Year’s weekend so we didn’t know if anything would be open but we figured it’d be fun to go find out!<\/p>\n

We stayed at the Hotel Winnishiek in downtown Decorah.\u00a0 It’s an old hotel but very pretty.\u00a0 We were a little unhappy in not getting the room we reserved and we were far from pleased with the hotel breakfast but we were comfortable and we’re really not all that fussy.<\/p>\n

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On our drive north, one of the places we were wanting to visit was the Bily Clocks Museum.\u00a0 This museum in in a very tiny town called Spillville, Iowa and it wasn’t too far from our destination of Decorah.\u00a0 I mean it was a 5 minute drive out of our way tops!<\/p>\n

I love old clocks so I was intrigued from the beginning when I learned of this place.\u00a0 Don’t know why but old clocks and antique radios….I really enjoy them!<\/p>\n

We drove to the museum on New Year Day expecting them to be closed and they were.\u00a0 I was hoping they’d have a pamphlet or something outside so I could find out their hours of operation or something?\u00a0 They didn’t have anything out but MFH grabbed a pic of me out in front.<\/p>\n

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The building itself is pretty awesome so I mentioned I’d like to go back on our way home and grab a few more pics.\u00a0 I wanted to see the entire building and I especially wanted a closer pic of the plaque to my left!\u00a0 So, a little about this museum:<\/p>\n

Back in 1913, the Bily brothers took up clock making as a hobby for during the winter months. They were farmers and carpenters but there really wasn’t a whole lot to do during the winter in northern Iowa back in the early 1900’s.\u00a0 Creating clocks seemed like the perfect hobby! Over the\u00a0 next 30 years, the brothers made over 20 clocks.\u00a0 They made smaller clocks and some pretty big clocks.\u00a0 The largest one is almost 10 foot tall!\u00a0 That’s one big clock!<\/p>\n

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Word spread of their hobby and some people would come to see their creations.\u00a0 They never sold a single clock, not even when Henry Ford offered to buy one of their clocks for a million dollars in 1928.\u00a0 In the mid 1940’s they gave their collection to the town of Spillville but made the town promise that they would never move\/sell any of their clocks.\u00a0 That is how the clocks ended up at this building.<\/p>\n

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Now, before this building became the clock museum, we’re going to backtrack to the summer of 1893.<\/p>\n

Back in 1893\u00a0Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k and his family moved into this house for the summer.<\/p>\n

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Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k was a famous Czech composer and the town of Spillville had a strong Czech speaking population. He hired a secretary named\u00a0Josef Jan Kova\u0159\u00edk.\u00a0 Josef had just completed violin studies at the Prague Conservatory and was returning home to the United States.\u00a0 It was logical to relocate to Spillville where Josef’s father was a schoolmaster.<\/p>\n

They moved in the now Bily Clocks Museum building and\u00a0Dvo\u0159\u00e1k settled down to work.\u00a0 During the summer of 1893, he composed the String Quartet in F (The “American”) and the String Quintet in E Flat Major.\u00a0 He was a busy guy that summer!\u00a0 He moved his family back to New York that fall.<\/p>\n

Dvo\u0159\u00e1k is probably best known for the New World Symphony.<\/p>\n