The Galveston County Daily News

FRIENDSWOOD — It was very likely a perfect morning for barn-raising — cool and overcast.

Although few, if any, volunteers who met at the historic Perry House in Friendswood early Saturday would have known, for lack of barn-raising experience.

The two dozen workers represented the black and white TV generation, the computer generation and the i-Pod generation, but they set all those aside to swing a hammer for an older bit of history.

The group met at the 107-year-old Perry place to rebuild a milking barn lost sometime before the house was refurbished in 1994, Mel Measles, Friendswood Historical Society member and co-coordinator of the barn-raising, said.

On the suggestion and persistence through the last few years of Verla Perry, a relative of the house’s original owners Nathan and Mary Perry, the historical foundation decided to rebuild the structure with a head nod to the area’s Quaker heritage.

Despite a few sprinkles of rain, historical society members, a large group from the Friends-

wood High School Interact and residents hoisted up prefabricated walls and nailed down planks.

The framework went up within the first few minutes, a few hours later the floor and roof went up.

The 12-foot-by-14-foot barn was patterned after the one originally on the property complete with loft, rope and pulley.

The high schoolers attacked the project with vigor and varied levels of skill. Their hammers cracked in a chorus like a hard rain on a rusted metal roof.

The adults, saddled with their toolbelts and ready reserves of power tools waiting in their truck beds, largely “supervised” until it was time to construct the more complex roof elements.

It was a fitting historic tribute, built on sweat and elbow grease, right up until the group met an impasse — a board was too long — then out came the eager electric saws.

Participants laughed and talked while they worked, while others prepared breakfast tacos and a barbecue lunch.

Steve Rockey, co-coordinator of the build, said he was glad to have so many young volunteers with younger knees to reach the lower-lying nails.

But everyone seemed to get a kick out of the project. It was the first barn-raising for Andrew Nguyen, an officer with the Interact group, but not the first time he has swung a hammer.

The event has been one of the best attended of the group’s service projects this year, Nguyen said.

The high school senior said there’s a widening disconnect between young people who are growing up in suburban neighborhoods and the area’s rural heritage because students are bombarded with so much modernization.

Reconnecting students is one of the main motivations for the historical society, Measles said.

Every year, hundreds of fourth- and fifth-graders visit the property to learn about farming and experience a bit of the past, he said.

After finishing the barn, historical society members hope to add a $5,000 electronic cow with working udders in an effort to illustrate a lifestyle most students never have read about.

“We want to show them that milk doesn’t come from the grocery store,” Measles said.

Nguyen said he thinks students respond much better to seeing and experiencing history than being confined to the classroom.

The barn began educating before it was even built.

Throughout the day, the two dozen students who carried lumber around the building site and the few who whacked their fingers with hammers gained a much more intimate knowledge of what life in bygone eras was like.