Supporting Historic Museums

Supporting Historic Museums

“As they are for home-town residents everywhere, the local attractions always are just ‘there,’ with seemingly plenty of time to stop in. Trips to distant attractions beckon, and we don’t discount the road trip’s enduring appeal. But somehow time to visit the local sites never seems to materialize, and it’s always in the wake of such disasters that we finally learn what we’ve lost. So here’s a plea to take advantage of your local historic sites, support them however you might—both volunteer help and financial aid are eagerly sought and gratefully accepted—and appreciate how truly fragile our collective past is before it’s too late.”
– James M. Tarbox, History Channel Magazine, regarding the institutions flooded in Cedar Rapids IA in 2008

An abundance of hidden gems are scattered across our nation, a lot of them tucked away in our own backyards. Many of us drive past them every day, unware or unappreciative of their existence.

Local historic museums preserve the memories of the early days of our communities. They tell the stories of a time long past.

These museums vary from small one-room monuments to rambling historic villages containing an assortment of log cabins, old houses, mercantiles and jails.

They have one thing in common.

They need us.

Without the support of the community, volunteers and donations, these small museums are at risk. Many are barely surviving. Too many have already locked their doors, unable to remain afloat.

Many of these share several common denominators. Most are run by small volunteer organizations, stretching their resources thin to remain open to public. Most usually exist on shoe-string budgets, without the benefit of massive funding enriching them. A large portion of the local museums offer free admittance, or only charge a nominal fee, usually in the $2-$5 range. While this isgreat for the visitor, it doesn’t help the museum pay for their monetary needs.

How can we help these local facilities preserve our local heritage and history? What can we do to ensure these establishments remain in existence to protect and remember our past?

We can help these little time capsules in three major ways: Volunteer, Support and Promote, and Donate.

I can hear your arguments already. I don’t have time to volunteer. I don’t like to speak in front of people. I can never remember all that history for the docent spiel. I can’t commit to a regular volunteer schedule.

Never fear! Life is hectic and time is a premium for most of us. I certainly know that. Your local organizations know it too. But, there are ways to volunteer without committing to a huge weekly chunk of time. You don’t need to be a polished public speaker to help out your local historical treasure.

WAYS TO VOLUNTEER:

• Be a docent on a weekly or monthly basis
• Help with special events
• Cataloge items
• Collect oral histories
• Write their newsletter
• Write an article for a local paper
• Assist with web site design
• Aide with video services
• Donate graphics or logos
• Apply for grants
• Help with cleaning, changing exhibits, or maintaining the premises

WAYS TO SUPPORT & PROMOTE:

• Become a member (of the museum, of the historical society, or of The Friends)
• Attend special events
• Bring visiting family and friends
• Promote to family, friends, and neighbors
• Promote on social media
• Help with promotions/PR

WAYS TO DONATE:

• Share your family’s stories
• Donate items of local, or period, significance
• Give contributions or endowments
• Entrance fee only $2? Put $5, $10 or $20 in the basket instead.
• Donate needed equipment like computers, printers, video recording equipment, tape recorders for oral history, stamps, printer paper, or ink cartridges. How about some cleaning supplies or trash bags? Legal pads, pens and pencils? Not sure what they need? Just ask!

I have a personal story to share, about how a group of volunteers worked together cohesively, to create a very successful event. In August 2014, I delivered a set of 1934 quilt squares to a museum in Iowa. The Taylor County Historical Society, and the entire community, welcomed me with open hearts showing me true Iowa hospitality. They planned a special tea and I flew in from Texas, taking 20 fliers with me, hoping that we’d have at least that many people attend.

The reception literally knocked my socks off. The museum, in the midst of rural Iowa complete with the surrounding corn fields as far as the eye could see, hosted 72 guests that afternoon. Many museums in urban areas with a much larger population would be excited to have a crowd that large.

The only reason the day was so successful, was due to the time and efforts of their dedicated volunteers. Rosalyn Cummings, the (unpaid) director, worked tirelessly to coordinate the event. Helen Janson, past museum director, and her daughter, Jeanne Janson, spent time in research and brought copies of newspaper articles about the quilting club established in 1934. Ellen Lemke, the museum’s oldest volunteer at 99 years young (Now 100, as of May 2015) entertained the crowd with a lively talk about quilting and art, finishing with reading one of her poems on the subject. Bonnie Polston decorated a cake, complete with a coordinating Sunbonnet Sue, for the occasion. Other volunteers, Sandi Salen, Scott Marcum, Sandy Kennedy and Mary Lou Dukes, worked together seamlessly, greeting guests, getting more chairs as needed, helping serve cake and punch, besides the time and efforts they all put into this before the first guest arrived.

These wonderful volunteers are the ‘proof that’s in the pudding’. The love, care and concern that they have for their local museum shines out in all they do, even in the behind the scenes tasks that no one ever sees.

I hope something here resonates with you and urges you to contact your own local museum to see how you can be of assistance. There should be something that you can help with, without taking a huge amount of time or effort. I’m sure they’ll be ecstatic at your offer and you’ll have the satisfaction and pleasure of knowing you’re part of a group preserving the memories of the past. Your favorite museum can remain open and history is accessible to those interested in it.

Where is the hidden gem in your area?

Have you been there? Have you visited recently?

This week, give them a call. Check what hours they’re open and stop by for a visit. Take a peek into the past and see how you can be a friend to these local treasures.

Trisha Faye is enthusiastic about supporting and maintaining places of historic interest. Based in Roanoke, Texas, she writes of people from the past. Her ebooks include: Wash on Monday and Dear Arlie: Postcards from a Friend (1907-1913). She also compiled Texas Historic Museums: North Texas. Visit her at www.trishafaye.com

V: Visitor Center and Museum (Roanoke, Texas)

Welcome to the A to Z blog challenge! Bread and Butter Days shares tidbits from the past. Follow us for posts to go directly to your inbox. Don’t worry, after April we go back to our once a week schedule, so your inbox won’t explode.

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V: Visitor Center, Roanoke Texas

Many cities have visitor centers that highlight the history of the town. Many also have brochures and pamphlets of fun places to visit in the area.

Today, for ‘V’, I’m featuring my favorite visitor center – the one in our town, Roanoke, Texas.

From the web site:

“Come visit us at the Roanoke Visitor Center and Museum and see our beautifully restored rock building from 1886, the centerpiece of downtown Roanoke since the turn of the twentieth century. The building was re-opened to the public in 2008 after a rigorous restoration.

Formerly the Silver Spur Saloon, the stately building also housed an upstairs brothel, dance hall, and much more. Enjoy our collection of local and regional artifacts and learn about the local legends of Roanoke’s vibrant past. The Silver Spur Saloon Building was awarded a Texas Recorded Historic Landmark designation and received an award for Best Renovation from the Texas Downtown Association and Preservation Texas in 2009.”

http://www.roanoketexas.com/index.aspx?NID=207

S: Settlement to City Museum, Grapevine, Texas

S: Settlement to City Museum, Grapevine, Texas

The Grapevine Historical Museum, inside the replica Grapevine Ice Company building. Visitors to the Grapevine Historical Museum explore the cultural and family life of early Grapevine residents in such areas as agriculture, industry, childhood and more. Exhibits include a trip through Grandma’s attic, restored wedding gowns, farm and dairy life, and much more.

The Donald Schoolhouse, a ca. 1900 school building, offers a lesson on education as it developed on the Grape Vine Prairie – beginning in a log cabin and growing into today’s modern school district. Originally a Home Economics and Agriculture building for the Donald School was originally situated on Denton Creek. It teaches us about education on the Grape Vine Prairie.

The Keeling House Museum resides in a ca. 1888 historic home and chronicles how Grapevine developed from a pioneer settlement into a world-class city and visitor destination. Inside the museum you will see old time police and fire treasures and other City of Grapevine artifacts. There is also a collection of Mayor William D. Tate’s artifacts. Inside The Keeling House Museum, guests will discover a working 1881 Chandler and Price Press (the Grapevine LetterPress Lab). The Keeling House Museum is home to the Settlement to City collection. This exhibit was created for Grapevine’s centennial and highlights the city’s growth from prairie settlement to city.

The Grapevine Cotton Ginner’s Museum, inside a ca. 1910 house, chronicles the era when cotton was king and three gins in town prepared Grapevine’s crop to touch the world. This museum features hands on activities including the route for Texas Prairie cotton. This wonderful museum can be reserved for private functions and conferences.

http://www.grapevinetexasusa.com/grapevine-museums/settlement-to-city-museums/

E: Emory Heritage Park

Welcome to the A to Z blog challenge! Bread and Butter Days shares tidbits from the past. Follow us for posts to go directly to your inbox. Don’t worry, after April we go back to our once a week schedule, so your inbox won’t explode.

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E: Emory Heritage Park

Small Texas towns are a great spot to step back in time and see remnants of earlier days. Emory Heritage Park is one of those locations. It’s located off Highway 69, adjacent to the Rains County Public Library in Emory. The Rains County Historical Society maintains the park, dedicated to the preservation and history of Rains County in the early 1900’s.

County Line Magazine reported in 2012 that some of the historic structures in the park, moved from various towns in Rains County include:

• The Luckett House, a 1912 Texas style farm house.
• Shady Grove Missionary Baptist Church, built in 1930.
• Point Gasoline Service Station, a 1920 gas station which was a community meeting place in Point, about eight miles northwest of Emory, selling groceries, snacks, auto parts, and other supplies.
• The Point Cotton Gin scales building, dated from the 1920’s. Around the 1900’s, cotton was a major cash crop for farmers in East Texas. The cotton industry in Rains County reached its record high in 1931.
• The Rains County Leader building is a replica of the 1887 newspaper’s office that still serves Rains County today.
• Other structures in the park include an octagonal bandstand, an outhouse, and a steel jail cell. A replica of an old jail building is planned to be built around this cell.

Emory, the “land between the lakes,” is located 70 miles northeast of Dallas between Lake Tawakoni and Lake Fork.

For further enquiry contact the City of Emory Development Corporation, 903-473-2465 or visit their website at http://www.emorytx.com.

See photos of Emory Heritage Park at http://www.inegaleri.com.

STITCH & CHATTER CLUB – ATHELSTAN, IA 1934

Bread and Butter Days
by Trisha Faye

STITCH & CHATTER CLUB – ATHELSTAN IA 1934

Many American women quilted their way through life. Especially in the days following the Great Depression.

The women and girls from Athelstan, Iowa were no different. Quilts to stay warm. Quilts to bring beauty. Quilts as a community activity, joining the women together in a creative and useful activity.

When the women and young girls sat down in 1934 to create blocks with Sunbonnet Sue and Overall Bill (or Sam), I doubt they knew what would happen 80 years later, long after they were gone. Little did they know then, that a set of 30 blocks would remain together for so many years. They sat, stacked in a pile. Doris married. Doris raised a family. Doris moved to the California desert, where she died in 2005.

Families usually don’t keep all of Grandma’s possessions. Much ends up being passed along. To friends and neighbors. Local thrift stores. Local charities. Alas, much ends up in yard sales, as these quilt blocks did. One day, around 2005, I stumbled upon this set of blocks, nestled in amongst three quilt tops at a yard sale in Palm Springs, California. It took several years to discover where the names on the square originated. The names led to a small, now disincorporated, town of Athelstan, Iowa.

Another four years of talking to the Taylor County Historical Museum finally culminated in a get together at the museum. Seventy five people attended a program to view these quilt squares from the past, many of them from their mothers, aunts, grandmothers and other family members.

Stories were shared. Photographs were passed around. People met each other, hugged, chatted and shared memories.

Carol LaChapelle wrote, in Finding Your Voice, Telling Your Stories, “… people die twice: when they physically die, and when we stop telling stories about them.” The stories shared that day, and in the days surrounding this visit, have kept these women’s memories alive.

One of the questions (among many!) that arose was about an Athelstan quilting group. Leona Stephenson, Leona Mae Byrns at the time, was 18 months old, according to the square her mother, Eva Marie Byrns, made for her. Leona recalled her mother being in a quilting guild. That was as much as we knew at the time.

Until … Helen Janson and her daughter, Jeanne Janson walked in. Helen, the past museum director, was initially involved with discussions about bringing the quilt squares to the museum. Helen and Jeanne researched past copies of The Bedford Times Press from 1934 and found five days where the newspaper mentioned the Athelstan quilting group.

During the presentation, I read one of the articles, but not all of them. In the flurry of activity that afternoon I didn’t read them all, until after the program was over and everyone had gone their separate ways. Reading the other articles, I realized that I was remiss in not reading them all during the program. These little snippets are fascinating and shed a brighter light on the Athelstan women and their quilting activities.

Helen and Jeanne discovered the following snippets that show the importance that quilting played in the lives of the Iowa women in 1934. And now, more than just the people that were at the gathering can also enjoy the history of the women and this tiny town.

Thursday, September 6, 1934
FORM NEW CLUB Elect Officers – Harriett Frazier is President
A group of Athelstan ladies have formed a new club, which will be known as “The Stitch and Chatter Club”. The following officers were elected: President, Harriet Frazier; vice president, Alma Lyons; secretary, Katie Kemery; treasurer, Katie Fidler. Mrs. Frazier was hostess to the club today, September 6.     …

The ladies of Athelstan and vicinity finished the second of two quilts Friday they had pieced and quilted for the F.S. Fidler family who lost their household goods by fire recently.

Thursday, October 18, 1934
Club Knots Comforts
The Stitch and Chatter club met Thursday at the home of Mrs. Ida Bownes. The afternoon was spent in knotting comforts. Mrs. Marjorie Book became a new member of the club. Mrs. Hilda Rusco will be hostess at the next meeting.

Thursday, November 15, 1934
Club has Quilting
The Stitch and Chatter club met with Mrs. Jennie Rusco Thursday. The day was spent in quilting. Guests were Ruby Jenkins, who became a new member of the club, Mrs. O.P. Pettigrew and Ethel Sickles. The next meeting will be with Mrs. Ida King.
Donate to Church
The ladies of the Stitch and Chatter club served lunch and dinner election day, clearing twenty dollars which will be applied to the fund to repair the Athelstan Baptist Church.

Thursday, November 29, 1934
Ladies Clean Church
The ladies of the Stitch and Chatter club, who had the Athelstan Baptist church repaired recently, met Tuesday afternoon and again Friday and cleaned the church.
Club Has Quilting
The Stitch and Chatter club met at the home of Violet Woods Thursday. Fourteen members were present. The afternoon was spent in quilting. An all day meeting will be held at the home of Bess Rusco, Friday Nov. 30.

Thursday, December 13, 1934
Mrs. Rusco Entertains
The Stitch and Chatter club met at the home of Bess Rusco, Thursday, Dec. 6. The day was spent in quilting. Verne Books and Mrs. J.D. Brown were guests. Mrs. Ruby Treece will be the next hostess.

Many thanks to Helen and Jeanne Janson for their time in researching this and adding this piece of history to the story of the people of Athelstan.

CALICO CONNECTIONS

Bread and Butter Days
by Trisha Faye

CALICO CONNECTIONS

Eighty years ago Nellie Morris, of Athelstan, Iowa, had an idea.

She wanted a special Christmas gift for her daughter, Doris. But in 1934 there wasn’t a lot of extra money for gifts. The idea of ‘disposable income’ didn’t exist. Any money the family had went towards necessities. Families made every effort to avoid joining the thousands who had lost their family homes or farms since Black Friday in 1929.

Nellie’s idea became a reality. Family, friends, and neighbors stitched a muslin square with Sunbonnet Sues and Overall Bills. They added their names – a way for Doris to remember them.

On August 9, 2014, 80 years later, the set of 30 squares are coming home to Iowa.

The squares stitched by women and children so long ago, were never pieced together into a quilt. But, they remained together as a set. Through Doris’ marriage to Clarence Shackelford in 1944. Through children. Through grandchildren. Through a move to California. The squares outlived Doris, who died in 2005.

These pieces remain, a testament to a frugal life in Iowa. Doris’ friends, Doris’ neighbors – they stitched a piece of history over the days and weeks they spent creating their addition to this special gift.

Two squares represent Betty and John Balch. Stitching and fabrics are the same on both pieces. I assume 11 year old Betty made both; one for herself and her younger brother John.

Beverly Ruth Barnett and Dorothy Barnett each made a square.

Darlene and Leona Booher each created a square using a sewing machine on theirs.

The Bownes family is well represented, with squares for Charles, sisters Evelyn and Maxine, and one for Minnie and Josie. Mrs. E. J. Bownes (Eliza Jane) has a square. The fabrics and stitching on hers is similar to her daughter, Georgia Older, who probably created both pieces.

Leona Mae Byrns was only a toddler that winter of 1934. Her mother made a square for her, and added her age – 18 months. Leona’s square is the only one with an age added to it.

More squares were added to the collection. Jean Marie Carroll, Lelah Clark, Kate Fidler, Katie Kemery, Norma Gean Kemery, Grace Murray and Deliliah Rusco.

Berneice Scott and Thelma Weaver each have a square. With the matching fabrics and similar stitching, it appears that the same person made each one. One of the (many) mysteries all these years later is who sat and spent the hours lovingly creating the quilt blocks.

Dean Weese, also a toddler at the time, ended up with two quilt blocks – one Sunbonnet Sue and one Overall Bill. Madelyn Weese added a square. She was creative with hers and added a flower outlined in a blanket stitch and crafted her own unique pattern for her applique work.

Three squares were given for this gift that didn’t have any names. The colors are reminiscent of the traditional Amish solid cottons. My own personal guess, and one that will probably never be confirmed, is that they came from one of the Amish families in the area.

A square for Rex Miller, Doris’ brother added to the collection. And then, the final touch, Nellie signed her square ‘From Mother, To Doris’ and added ‘1934’ in the embellished bonnet.

These muslin and calico blocks remain from the past, reminders of a time when life was different. Athelstan was a farming town and community. Neighbors knew one another. Times were tough, but people stood together.

Time passes. Life happens. Children grow up and have their own families and lives. People move away. Progress continues. Roads are paved. Farms are sold and houses built in their place. Towns are disincorporated.

Yet sometimes, small fragments of the past continue on, outliving the people they were meant to be remembered by.

We invite anyone with an interest in the Athelstan quilt squares to join us for a program and tea. Join us at the Taylor County Historical Museum on Saturday, August 9^th at 1:30 p.m.

Please RSVP to Rosalyn Cummings, 712-427-0173, which will help with planning the day’s events.

The Taylor County Historical Museum is located at 1001 Pollock Blvd, Bedford, IA. Phone (712) 523-2041. The hours are 1 pm to 4 pm, every day except Monday.

 

Do you know any of these people? Do you have any stories about ‘the good ole days’ that you’d like to share? Contact Trisha Faye at texastrishafaye@yahoo.com