Sunday school picnics and ice cream socials were perennial favorites sponsored each summer by the churches. The picnics were frequently held on attractive parts of neighboring farms, or sometimes as far away as Seneca or Great Falls. Each family would bring a large hamper of food, but the fried chicken, watermelon and pies were spread out on the tables to be shared by everyone. While the parents gossiped or talked politics, the children played and sometimes went swimming. These picnics, like other community events, were held jointly by the Methodists and Presbyterians.[256] The ice cream socials, however, were another story. Here a mild rivalry set in as ladies vied with one another to produce the most admirable cake, and even a slight competition arose over the ice cream. An area resident confided that there was some speculation about which denomination's members owned cows giving the creamiest milk, thus producing the "most sinfully rich" ice cream.[257] No doubt this comparison diminished in importance when one was faced with the wide variety of homemade flavors, using fresh fruits and extracts. Sometimes in early summer the socials would feature strawberries along with the ice cream. On a quiet summer evening, with the fireflies flickering like beacon lights and a whispering breeze lapping at tableclothes and skirts, these must have been particularly pleasant events.[258]
Significant holidays also brought about special church programs. At Easter the churches were banked with flowers and a singular rejoicing occurred, and on Mother's Day an appropriate program was offered. The 1926 service included a suitable sermon and original Mother's Prayer by the minister and several selections by the choir, among them "When Mother Sang to Me," "Don't Forget the Old Folks," and "Our Mother."[259] The year's main celebration was, of course, at Christmas. Each church had a Christmas tree, cut by an adult, but decorated with "feet and almost miles" of popcorn strings by the neighborhood's young people, including those just returning home for the holidays. The warm ambiance of these services is evident in the following description, recounted by Joseph Beard:
They always had the little people from what you consider the primary grades on up to sixth or seventh grade recite some little poem or some story or something of this kind. You nearly always had a chorus or choir, small, of people in the neighborhood that would sing Christmas carols. You always had a minister who read or recited the Christmas story from the Bible.... The churches were lighted with oil lamps, and they would put candles on the Christmas tree, wax candles and they would light those wax candles and then blow out the lights. It's a wonder we never set the church on fire.... But there would be this beautiful tree with all these lights on it, and hidden down under the tree somewhere would be a great big crate of oranges. Santa Claus usually came in and ... he would ring sleigh bells and walk down through the aisle and make some kind of remark. He would have a sack on his back. This always held tiny little sacks of candy. They started with the smallest children and gave each one of them one orange and one sack of hard candy. They went on up the line as far as the oranges and the candy lasted. If you didn't have a crowd even the adults would get a sack of candy and an orange, but if you had a large crowd, why it stopped at whatever age it ran out along the line. This was an affair at which the program would probably take an hour, an hour and fifteen minutes. But it was cold in there you know ... they'd have a great big, old pot bellied stove, but it was in one place in the church. Everybody couldn't sit around that stove, so you sat there in your overcoats sometimes.[260]
Miss Gladys Thompson and the Floris Community Orchestra, 1929. The members at this time included: Front row: Haley Smith, Louise Cockerill, Louise McNair; Second row: Richard Peck, unidentified, Miss Gladys Thompson (director), Jack Patton, Mary Peck, Franklin Ellmore; Back row: Helen Presgraves, Ethel Andrews, Mary Win Nickell, Elizabeth Ellmore, Helen Peck. The old car in the background is the one in which Miss Thompson first traveled. Note the old four-room schoolhouse also in the background. Photo courtesy of Louise McNair Ryder.
Other groups offered activities to fill the farm family's leisure hours. An elementary school teacher who taught music as a sideline, Gladys Thompson, organized an orchestra about 1928. It consisted of her violin pupils and other musically inclined citizens and was called the Floris Community Orchestra. Twelve violins, and mandolins, saxophones, piano, drums and banjo made up the group which played for school plays and community events. They also put on an annual recital and one year even gave a vaudeville show. "I remember she used to fill up her small one-seated roadster with music students going to practices and performances," fondly wrote a member of the orchestra, Louise McNair Ryder. "One of my greatest pleasures was clambering into the rumble seat with my violin."[261]
Musical groups also sprang up spontaneously. One, which Joseph Beard referred to as a "little old hillybilly band," included besides himself on fiddle, Virginia Presgraves (piano) and her uncle Austin Wagstaff on ukulele. Richard Peck played banjo and saxophone for the group. They played together over a period of several years, using no sheet music, but becoming so comfortable with each other's playing that they could anticipate the variations and style of their fellow musicians. They practiced in the schoolhouse, playing country tunes such as "Camp Town Races," "Old Black Joe," and "Shortnin' Bread" for their own amusement. They rarely entertained an audience.[262] Sometimes too the school or an unofficial group sponsored musical events, a notable one being the concert by "Al Hopkins and his Buckle-Busters," a celebrated country band from North Carolina.[263]
In addition, serious organizations like the Farmer's Clubs, Community League or church-affiliated women's clubs, mixed work and play by sponsoring picnics, quilting bees, and oyster suppers. The record made of a pleasant outing by Farmer's Clubs #1 and #4 to the Great Falls in 1913 was typical of many excursions in later years:
It goes without saying that all present had a very enjoyable day. The children spent much time on the swings and Merry-Go-Rounds while the older members spent the day in viewing the falls.... While still others enjoyed fishing.[264]