Tea time pours into Oakhurst Monday

By Elizabeth Gabriel

(Updated: Friday, May 09, 2008, 5:53 PM)

Tighten your corset, slip on your morning frock, get out that spring chapeau and smooth on your best white gloves for a tea in the Victorian style Monday in celebration of May as Museum Month.

The Wild Wonderful Women & Friends and the King Vintage Museum are giving everyone a chance to dress up (period costume more than welcome) and join them at Time for Tea in Oakhurst beginning at 11 a.m.

The Strawberries and Pearls: Victorian Tea menu will include peach strawberry tea, assorted tea sandwiches, tea scone with strawberry jam, lemon curd and Devonshire cream, savories and assorted strawberry desserts.

There also will be a silent auction with items from Mountain Area museums, a raffle and a fashion exhibit.

"Reservations are going well and we might need to arrange a second seating," said a delighted Mary Ann Hutcherson, who has worked hard to make the tea and Museum Month a reality.

"Why is tea time so appealing?" she asked. "It brings with it beauty, romance, elegance and friendship."

Beginning in America and England in the late 1880s, tea service began in stately homes, tea rooms and tea courts. Victorian ladies and gentlemen would meet for tea and conversation. That's what WWW&F hope everyone will do to benefit the King Vintage Museum.

It is a vintage costume and accessories museum spanning more than 200 years. The collection includes women's, men's and children's clothing and accessories including war memorabilia and military uniforms from the Civil War and Spanish American War.

The tea will include several of the museum's dresses that celebrate the elegance and beauty of the Victorian times. The fashion exhibit will include special tours of the museum after the tea can be arranged by calling the museum. The museum is about a block -- downhill -- from the restaurant, at 49269 Golden Oak Drive, Suite 100 (across from Western Sierra Nursery).

While the tea benefits the King museum, organizers hope to raise raise awareness of the museums in the Consortium of Southern Yosemite Museums. All of them are all celebrating May as Museum Month. The members of the volunteer group are the California State Mining and Mineral Museum in Mariposa, Coarsegold Historic Museum, Children's Museum of the Sierra in Oakhurst, Fresno Flats Historic Park in Oakhurst, Gold Gulch Museum in Coarsegold, Little Church on the Hill in Oakhurst, Raymond Museum, Sierra Mono Museum in North Fork , Thornberry Museum & Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad in Fish Camp and the Wild Wonderful King Vintage Museum.

Hutcherson said she hopes to get people together for more teas in the future.

"It will probably be one of many," she said. "Victorian tea goes along so well with so many of the things we have in the King museum."

Strawberries and Pearls: Victorian Tea

Monday, May 12, 11 a.m.

$17.95

Time for Tea (intersection of Highway 49 and Crane Valley Road) in Oakhurst

Reservations required: (559) 658-6999 or (559) 641-5911 or e-mail punkyboo@sti.net