Season's Greetings

This time of year marks a number of different holidays for people of all religions and cultures.



It also marks an important time of year for the Laurel Museum. The end of December traditionally marks the closing of our exhibit and the final stages of planning for our upcoming exhibit.

This year is no different. Today is the last day to see our current exhibit, "Shake, Rattle 'n' Roll: Laurel in the 1950s". This exhibit was the first exhibit I took part in for the Laurel Museum.

In some ways, I am sad to see it go. No more poodle skirt figurines will greet me as I walk in the door each morning. No longer will I have nostalgic 50 (and 50 something) high school reunions coming back to point out all of their friends in our exhibit.

But sometimes change is good. So as we look forward to the New Year and our new exhibit I am excited about several things:

1) Our new exhibit was planned with the help of several community groups. We looked to different places of worship and service organizations to helps us identify what Laurel is like today. Along the way we met many new friends. I hope we can continue to maintain these relationships in the New Year. If we do, it will benefit us and I hope the community groups we worked with.

2) Our new exhibit is going to be much more interactive than our last. One of the things we realized in our 1950s exhibit was that people wanted to give back. People wanted to contribute their memories, their life stories to our exhibit. We had a function for that--a story book--but it led us to realize that there is so much more than we can do. So with this exhibit, you'll find that there are a number of ways you can interact and contribute to the exhibit.

3) Our new exhibit will continue to grow as it stands in the Museum. I don't want to give too much away, but our exhibit won't be static. Because of people's contributions throughout the year it is up and because we will be changing certain things, our exhibit won't be the same for the entire year. And that in and of itself, is exciting.

So, if you haven't seen our current exhibit, try to stop by in the next 3 hours. Or give me a call and arrange for a tour before we take it off the walls in January. Either way, please join us in looking forward to our next exhibit.

Oh, and we finally settled on a title for the next exhibit:

Snapshots in Time: Our Community in 1910 and 2010

Holiday House Tour

Some things that take place at the LHS are done with very little supervision on my part. I greatly appreciate those times when I know something is being handled by a capable volunteer and all I have to do is check in from time to time.

One such instance where I've been able to sit back and relax is the Holiday House Tour. The Tour, a bi-annual tradition for the LHS, is taking place this year.

I know that a number of our volunteers have been VERY hard at work arranging the Holiday House Tour. One family in particular has done a lot for the house tour this year. The mother in this family is the chair of the Holiday House Tour Committee and she has worked very hard since last spring to plan the House Tour.

She has changed several aspects of the tour, including one wonderful new idea: expanding the sponsorship opportunities available to local businesses. In thinking of this idea, she has done exactly what we want all of volunteers to do: consider development as a part of their undertaking, not just the board's.

Now, we won't be buying a new building with the money she has pulled together, but it is a considerable amount. Furthermore, it was only made because she thought outside the box. Of course, she was thinking outside the box while still juggling all of the responsibilities of the House Tour Committee chairmanship. And she has done a wonderful job in both instances!


The house tour takes place on December 12. We have a number of exciting places to visit (all of which are a secret--shhhh!). I hope some of you are able to join us. Come see what our new chair has changed and what classic aspects of the tour have remained the same!

What do you think?

Can anyone guess what is happening in this image?

A Yummy Day With The LHS

This year for the second year in a row, the LHS hosted "The Taste of Laurel." This is a free event that we hold to showcase all of the wonderful food that Laurel has to offer. If you're sitting there thinking, "what wonderful food", read on!

This event is made possible because of the generous support of Main Street Pharmacy. Thank you Joan!

Beginning in the early summer, we start making the rounds to local restaurants and businesses inviting them to bring the best of what they have to offer to share with the community. Sometimes it is a hard sell, particularly if businesses have never heard of the Historical Society.

The point we try to explain to the businesses is: we are trying to provide a venue for them to show off their specialties. We want the Laurel community to know just how great our business community is and how much we have to offer. We want people to know what we already know about Laurel--There is a thriving small business community in Laurel, ready and willing to serve them!

What I find most difficult about convincing people of this is that we, a small historical society, would like to help them--a local business. I think it's hard for people who have never thought of a historical society taking on that role to conceive of why we would want to do that. They tend to think of us as the people who tell them whether or not they can hang a neon sign, but remember, that is not us!

The next step in the planning process is telling the community about theTaste of Laurel. We invite the Laurel community to attend this free event to sample local food and meet local business owners. As most people know, the idea of free food is an offer that will usually draw a good sized crowd, no matter the venue.

But as one of our vendors explained to me after the event, the people that attended really seemed to care about their community and care about the places they patronized. They are the type of people that quickly become regulars and support businesses because of how they are run, not just because of prices and quick deals. Which is great, because this is exactly the type of crowd we were hoping to attract!

And our crowd this year was big--we had over 100 people attend and 8 vendors participate. Aunt Susan's Kitchen, Fruit Flowers, Kafe Kabob, Main Street Sports Bar and Grill, Mango's Grill, Nuzback's, Toucan Taco, and Red Hot and Blue all brought their best food for visitors to taste.o t

Visitors had to visit the Museum first to collect tickets in order taste the free food. Tickets could be earned by walking through the door, completing a scavenger hunt of the current exhibit, entering a free raffle, and in several other ways.

Although we may have tricked them a little with the offer of free food, most visitors were happy to visit the Museum first. Many visitors who usually attend special programs and events at the Museum were happy to look through the exhibit closely. The West County Gazette has an article by Elizabeth Leight in which she quotes a visitor, Brennita Swan, who said "We come here all the time, but this scavenger hunt really helps us focus on certain things we may have missed."
Overall, I believe most people were happy to visit the Museum in order to get a taste of Laurel.

But this successful day, like so much of what goes on at the Museum, is only the tip of the iceberg for all of the planning and hardwork that went into putting the Taste of Laurel together. Thank you to all of LHS' wonderful volunteers for their hard work.

And if you own a local business and you'd like to take part in next year's Taste of Laurel, contact me soon!

An Exhibit Takes Shape....Sort Of

Every year the Laurel Museum features a new exhibit.

When I arrived, the current exhibit was "Buy It Here: Laurel Advertises". The exhibit we opened last February and which will run through this December is "Shake, Rattle 'n' Roll: Laurel in the 1950s".

Right now we're working on an exhibit that compares life in Laurel in 1910 and in 2010. We're tentatively calling it "Snapshots in Time: Our Story 1910/2010".

We know what our goals are with this exhibit:
Explore the many ways we conceive(d) of community in Laurel in 1910 and in 2010.
Have people leave with a deeper appreciation of their community.
Be interesting, engaging, interactive, meaningful, and visually exciting.


That doesn't sound too difficult? Right?

We're plugging along on the exhibit. We've done a lot of the broad research comparing Laurel in 1910 and 2010. But what we're really trying to base the exhibit on is pictures.

For 1910 we have the Sadler images. See a previous blog to learn more about Sadler. The images are great and frustrating.

The really wonderful thing about the Sadler images is that they tell 1 story of Laurel in 1910---one man's story of his family and friends. That allows us to discuss how history is saved and who defines history. This man saved his images, so his story largely defines our visual understanding of Laurel in 1910.

The not so wonderful part about the Sadler images is that they are VERY hard to scan. Apparently glass plate negatives neither like our old scanner or our new one.

I can not tell you all that we've done to try to get them to scan, but suffice it to say that I was taken off the duty of scanning because I could not control my emotions.

My wonderful coworker Monica was put on the task. She has been somewhat successful, but is seeing that success wear-off.

But that's okay. We anticipated that the scanning would be a huge task and it is. Somehow, someway, we WILL have images of 1910. We have them in our collection and we can make it happen.

But what about 2010? We want 2010 to be different--to not just have 1 man's story be the central part of the story. We want everyone in Laurel to help us tell that story.

Remember a while back when I predicted that people would think their story wasn't worth telling? Well, I think I was right.

We've put the word out through flyers, emails, newsletters, newspapers, etc and haven't had much luck. We've seen a trickle start, but definitely nothing overwhelming. I think people always assume that someone else's story is more interesting.

So here's what I have to say to that mentality:

You know you, the one sitting there reading this?I know what you're thinking...I don't have any pictures that are interesting.

Well, I bet you do. As long as they were taken within the greater Laurel area in the last 5 years we're interested. To learn more about exactly what we need, see this slightly confusing, but useful form.

I promise, we want your help. Not the guy sitting next to you in the computer lab at the library, but yours. Well, his too, but definitely yours as well.

And I promise, I won't make you try to use the scanner. All I ask is that you help us tell the story of Laurel today---your story.

A Friendly Ghost Story

This past Sunday at the Laurel Museum we had our Kids Fall Fun Day. Featuring the wonderful world of Pumpkins, this 2 hour event brought about 30 children and their families. We had some fun crafts like pumpkin weaving and pumpkin seed mosaics. We also had a pumpkin patch for children to pick their own pumpkins that they then decorated. We had lots of tasty pumpkin related food--pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin whip, pumpkin butter, etc.

We also told the public that we would be having an age appropriate ghost story. I took up the charge to be the person to tell the age appropriate ghost story. I spoke to one of our wonderful volunteers who is also the vice principal at a local school for some rules on what I could and could not talk about.

Here were my parameters:
It can not be scary.
No one can die.
You can not talk about dead people.
Try to make it related to the history of Laurel and the house.

Hmm. Sounds easy, right?

The ghost story was to begin at 2:15 and right around that time people started trekking to the spot we picked for our ghost story.

As I watched the little ones trickle in, I realize how much of a challenge this will be.

We had kids ranging in age from those who could barely walk to those who were already putting on makeup. It might be a little difficult to reach all of them with the same story.

But that's fine. Who doesn't love a great challenge? Certainly not small museum directors--we live for the challenge!

So I begin telling them the story.

I start by talking about the Museum building and how 4 families would have lived in the house.

I asked them where the people would have worked (The Mill), how old they had to be to start working (8yrs), etc.

I tell them about a little girl who was only 5 yrs old named Samantha who was left alone in the house to do chores while all of her family went to work. Her mean older sister liked to play tricks on her and hide things from her so that she couldn't finish her chores.

My story was interrupted by one boy who insisted Samantha could not have told us this. I asked him why, and he said "Because she's dead". I realized at that point I had never given a date for the story and asked him how he knew she was dead. And he said because this happened like a long time ago. GREAT!

I responded, "Yes, this all happened over 100 years ago." Whew! I almost didn't tell them the date. And I thought, yes, she is dead, but you brought it up so I didn't technically go outside my set parameters.

Now back to the story...

Luckily, the little girl had a friendly ghost named Rebecca who would help her with her chores. Rebecca helped Samantha find the bucket to get water from the river for doing laundry that her mean sister would hide from her before she went to work. Rebecca also helped Samantha find the soap and other things her sister would hide.

All of this concluded with the children coming up one by one to plunge the washer plunger into the clothes bucket three times.

Throughout the experience I tried to keep their attention by asking questions. I asked them things like if any of them ever hid things from their brothers and sisters. I also kept asking them how old the little girl was and how long she had to wait before she could work at the mill.

Some of the kids were really annoyed that the story wasn't scarier. According to our evaluations, others seemed to really enjoy the story.

In the end, it was an interesting experience of us all. I learned that maybe I should plan out the ghost story a little better next time so the kids don't end up doing laundry. But I'm not sure. I think some people liked the "hands-on appropriate for all ages ghost story." We'll see. Maybe Samantha and Rebeccawill make another appearance sometime soon.

The Magic of Technical Difficulties

As I write, my phone plays corny 80s music. No, I did not buy a new ringtone.

I am on hold with the company that hosts our webpage (read: does the magic that makes our website appear).

Why would I want to spend my Tuesday morning on hold, listening to 80s music?

Because we're experiencing technical difficulties.

Apparently our website was hacked. Why would someone want to hack the LHS website? I don't know. I really don't.

Maybe they wanted to rewrite Laurel history. Maybe they couldn't resist our online walking tour. Maybe the fluffy teddy bears for sale in our online shop were too much for them to resist. I really don't know.

But what I do know, is how much we here at the Laurel Historical Society depend on people outside the organization to help us do what we do successfully.

About 5 or so times a week, I update our website. Add an event, a newsletter, a new feature, link to another website, etc. I try to keep it fresh and full of information. I want it to be as useful as possible to those who visit.

That being said, I personally could never develop, design, or say the magic spell that gets webpages up and running on the internet. And we certainly don't have an internet magician in our staff of 1 and 1/2.

But that's okay.

Because, as is the norm with the LHS, things were done well before I got here.

A committee convened and worked with 2 consultants to develop a website that works for us. A website that I(with my lack of internet-y type knowledge) can update and play with. That can be adjusted to fit our needs. Basically, a website that is magical.

The consultants, Lisa Bernard at LHB Consulting and Donna Safko at Mudpuddle Creations, are great. They work well with people who have little technical knowledge but have big ideas (people in this case means me). So we have an ongoing relationship with both of them.

Lunar Pages, the company that hosts our website is a company I rarely have to work with. Usually our website is up and running and doing magically well. But right now, it's not and we're all working with Lunar Pages to fix the problem.

When Lunar Pages realized someone hacked our website, they closed. It can only be re-instated when we've resolved the problem. So our email and website are both down. But not to worry, we will be back up soon. Hopefully. If I can find the magic spell, repeat it 5 times, and run around the Mill Worker's home 25 times in 2 minutes.

Or I stay on hold, listen to corny 80s music, and work with Lunar Pages to resolve the problem.