VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – I find it hard to believe it has been twenty-five years since I was hired to be the first “professional” curator for the Barnes County Historical Society Museum. I must have been having fun as the time has flown by. I have become part of the furniture around here! I guess the day I started was the sound of a square peg fitting tightly into a square hole. The first day I started was July 7th, 1997. I was to help Elma Rambow with one of her famous rummage sales she conducted for the benefit of the new museum on Central Ave. I had been hired in June to be “Volunteer Coordinator (Intern Status)” I remember being one of three candidates interviewed one night in the area now occupied by the train set. Eileen Starr from Valley City State University, (and my boss at the planetarium for the previous three years) was on the board and I think played a big part in getting me hired. I was graduating in May with a History/Social-Science BA Degree from the college and really didn’t know what I was going to do with it. The opportunity to work for the museum showed up with the donation of the Fair Store. The other two candidates, one was already running another museum in a community north of here and I think the other was a museum studies graduate. I didn’t think I’d have much of a prayer other than I was local and I worked cheap and was willing to learn on the job (and Eileen put in a really good word for me).
From graduation, I was unemployed about one month to the day. The rest is history as they say.
Looking back on it I’ll never forget the “cattle chute” between Ben Franklin and the rest of the mall cutting through the middle of the building. One had to go either up and over or down and under to unlock the door from the other side to get from front to back. The place was still very much the Fair Store with the shag carpeting, many colors, and lots of dressing rooms.
We were still running the old place on the west end of town and I’ll never forget trying to find a cure for the bad smell emanating from the underground ducts that had accumulated mold from all that 1997 moisture. I was trying my best to learn the collection and be helpful to anyone who came in to visit.
1997 was the year of the first Valley City buyouts and some of the homes were being demolished. Wayne McKirdy and I and a few others went into some of these homes to try to save a few things. It was also the year they were repurposing the old Elks Lodge. We got to go in a couple steps ahead of the demolition crew and rescue lots of the quarter-sawn white oak that we’ve since repurposed around the place.
Within my first couple weeks, I remember the night that the women’s room commode overflowed and there was an inch of water throughout the basement. We found a Buck Rogers-looking wet-dry vacuum backpack that I put to work getting it all up again while getting little electrical shocks here and there.
There was the move from the old place to the new that was supposed to happen gradually over the winter. With the impending rental of the building to NoDak Furniture of Fargo, things got speeded up to two weeks’ notice to get everything packed up and out! I used Jean Busta’s van many times the weekend of “Apple Days” to get the little stuff from there to here. Leah and Lester Jackson helped with the packing of stuff as did Joan and Gene Wolsky, Lester Speicher and George Amann among others. I’m not sure how we did it but we only lost one glass showcase in the process!
Jean Busta and I began the arduous process of cataloging the collection which had never been done before. We had only a few small scraps of paper detailing what things were, and some of them were in a small cardboard box. The first office was under the balcony in the back by the window. We moved operations upstairs and eventually took over the whole place trying to fill out forms the best we could by the most professional standards we had, using the big book of Museum Nomenclature.
We also had to start remodeling with the idea that we’d have something to show by Winter Show time in March, and be open on the main floor by Community Days June 1998.
The place was a whirl of activity busy demolishing the store and putting in slot-board we fell in love with. We were restoring showcases. I’ll never forget a trip we made with the guys to the mall in Fargo to look at display fixtures. We also made a couple runs to Herberger’s for mannequins and got quite a reputation with the NDSU surplus property folks for taking the impossible. We had so many wonderful volunteers give of their time and talents to make it all happen. I’m sure there were many times we weren’t sure we were going to make it. But we did.
Wayne McKirdy had to “strongly encourage me” for my first school tour as I had no idea what to tell the kids. My history major kicked in but my shyness held me back. I didn’t like public speaking, still not fond of it.
I learned so much about carpentry from George Amann, Wayne Olson, Wayne McKirdy, Gene Wolsky, Gordon Coffell, and Ed Button. Joan Wolsky taught me everything I know about display…she began the tradition of monthly window displays. Jean Busta brought her librarian skills to bear and with the Jacksons, Elma Rambough, and Jean Miller we got the collections cataloging underway. Jan Stowman taught me her skills in catering that I employ on a regular basis.
Together we made it happen those early days 25 years ago. I made some wonderful friends I will never forget and learned so much. It has been an adventure serving the past 25 years as your curator.
Wes Anderson
Curator of the Barnes County Museum