On the afternoon of Saturday, June 17, the drizzly weather cleared up perfectly for the Teddy Bear Tea Party outside the Gillaspie House Museum in Nederland. Members and volunteers of the Nederland Area Historical Society hosted a picnic-style tea party complete with homemade baked goods, crafts, and bear-themed storytime. The young guests also participated in historically inspired activities such as washing clothes with a washboard and wringer.

Young men and ladies showed up accompanied by their favorite stuffed animals. Many parents in attendance had heard about the party through Facebook, with some of the guests traveling in from Boulder and Boulder Canyon.

The party’s host, the Nederland Area Historical Society, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation and exhibition of historical documents, artifacts, and records pertaining to the town of Nederland. The Society hosts numerous events every year from silent auctions to pop-up tents at community festivals.

One of the Society’s ongoing preservation projects, the Gillaspie House Museum, is one of the oldest houses still standing in Nederland. The early 20th-century house was home to the family of Dr. Carbon Gillaspie and his wife Violet Todd. The house-turned-museum displays a wide variety of gadgets, fashion, and household items from the early 1900s including a vintage wood-burning stove, old medicine books and manuals, as well as an early phonograph.

Jessie Ansari is the vice president of the Nederland Area Historical Society and has cared for the museum for the last five years. A few years ago the museum received a huge donation of vintage tea cups, and so Ansari decided the most appropriate thing to do was to throw a tea party. The wholesome event is now in its third year. Ansari hopes the event will help introduce kids to the history and the stories of Nederland. “I love stories, like the old hidden stories. Especially women’s history; we get the mining museum…but not what life was actually like and what women were doing,” said Ansari.

Gretchen Cameron, a Nederland resident, brought her daughter to enjoy the tea party festivities. For Cameron, the Gillaspie House Museum is a reminder of lives that once were.

“It keeps the heritage alive because there was such a community here during the mining boom,” said Cameron. “[The Nederland community] continues to modernize and evolve.”

For more information about the Nederland Area Historical Society, please visit their website at https://www.nederlandareahistoricalsociety.org/ or give them a call at 720-514-9777. For more information about the Gillaspie House Museum, please visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/GillaspieHouseMuseum/.