Allison-Antrim Museum

                                     Greencastle, PA

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September 2003, Vol. 6, Issue 5

From the President’s Desk
Of the approximately 15,000 museums in the United States, 75% are small museums, like Allison-Antrim Museum and 6,450 of all of them are located in rural areas.  Museums are ranked in the top three family destinations for travelers.  Out of all the people on the highways, 36% of them will visit a museum. When was the last time you visited a museum?

Ken and I took four days a couple weeks ago and made day trips to different museums in Pennsylvania, the themes of which are as varied as the number of museums.  We started out with the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, which is just down the street from our beautiful capitol building.  Areas of the State Museum include archaeology and anthropology, industry and technology, a Civil War Gallery, Memorial Hall with an 18-foot statue of William Penn, a recreated 19th century village, a hands-on learning center for children and adults, the planetarium, paleontology and geology, Mammal Hall, and the natural science and ecology gallery. 

Our second trip took us to western Pennsylvania in Johnstown.  There are at least eight historic sites and museums in the Johnstown area. One could easily spend two days in the area.  We had already visited the Johnstown Flood Museum a number of years ago, so our destination this time was to the Heritage Discovery Center which opened in 2001.  We were amazed at the state-of-the art technology that is utilized behind the walls of an old brewery to tell the story of the immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe who settled in Johnstown at the dawn of the architectural revolution shortly after steel was discovered.  The men worked in the coal mines and steel mills, built bridges, railroads, and skyscrapers while women took care of their families, ran boarding houses, did laundry, and whatever else they could do to help sustain their families.

Upon entering the exhibit, each visitor chooses a passport with a photo and name of a real immigrant from the past. The passport is used throughout the exhibit as one sees, hears, and smells what daily life was like in Johnstown for the immigrants.  At the end of the tour, a computer print out tells you what happened to the person shown on the passport.  Everyone, adults and children, will appreciate the technology used to tell the story of immigrants.  The Heritage Discovery Center is a must see for every Pennsylvanian.

The Landis Valley Museum in Lancaster was our third destination.  It’s an interpretive museum with original buildings, demonstrations of open-hearth cooking, a country store, gunsmith, weaver, blacksmith, potter and more that preserve the history Pennsylvania German rural life.  The Landis Valley collection of nearly 100,000 antiques and artifacts was started by two brothers, George and Henry Landis. They established their small museum in the 1920’s on their family’s Landis Valley homestead.

Brochures for Johnstown and Landis Valley will be available at the museum.

Our week of one-day trips to Pennsylvania museums ended where we started – Harrisburg.  The National Civil War Museum is an outstanding modern museum.  It is truly a national museum of the Civil War. It is not biased and equally represents and tells the stories of both the Confederate and Union sides – their ways of life, their mindsets, and their politics.

With fall quickly approaching, what better time could there be to take one-day trips to some of Pennsylvania’s museums?  Go visit them for yourself; take your children or your grandchildren.  Don’t forget to visit your own hometown museum – Allison-Antrim Museum.  AAMI is of the 11,250 small American museums and we are much smaller than the above museums, but I guarantee that you will always learn something new every time you visit, no matter how many times you’ve visited Allison-Antrim Museum.  See you in September!

The Greencastle Civil War Roundtable Collection
Allison-Antrim Museum has been honored to receive into its care, the collection of the former Greencastle Civil War Roundtable.  The Roundtable was established in September 1971 and was active until 1995.  The active membership roster included Isabelle Barnes, Bonnie Bingaman, Lil Colletta, Glen Cump, Viola Ervin, Rev. Ralph Geiman, and Harold Roland. During their 24 years of meetings they amassed a sizeable collection of rare and important Civil War artifacts, textiles, and archives relative to Greencastle-Antrim and surrounding areas, as well as other items of historical value to Greencastle-Antrim.

A small portion of the extensive collection includes the following:  Lt. Col. Benjamin F. Winger’s Civil War coat, kepi, sash, sword, haversack, hand-carved wooden comb, lice comb, straight razor, and brass USA rosette for the horse’s bridal, Winger’s signed copy of the Organization of the Army of the Potomac, the small U.S. flag from the Center Square reviewing stand when the 126th Regiment returned home in 1863, high-rag content Philadelphia Inquirer newspapers from April 15 – 28, 1865 chronicling the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, original Civil War letters of Samuel North, Capt. Boyd’s original copy of the History of the 126th,125 dry glass slide negatives of the G-A area that were taken by George Frederick and G. Fred Zeigler, books that belonged to Ambassador Henry P. Fletcher, numerous WWII uniforms of Greencastle-Antrim veterans, an original copy of the History of Franklin County, and Charles “King” Lear’s manuscript for a book about the World Series.

Isabelle Barnes, Ralph Geiman, and I have begun the long process of starting to catalog the items. Items from the collection will be exhibited at different times as the opportunity arises.  The first items to be exhibited will be some of the Philadelphia Inquirer newspapers that reported the daily news of the assassination of President Lincoln. They will be part of the September and October special exhibit, “A Time to Mourn.”

On behalf of Allison-Antrim Museum and the Greencastle-Antrim community, ‘thank you’ to the Civil War Roundtable members for their diligent efforts in putting this collection together over a period of almost 25 years.  They have most certainly helped to honor and preserve our past.

Pictorial History Book of Greencastle-Antrim
Arcadia, a publishing company in Portsmouth, NH contacted AAMI last year about publishing a pictorial history book of Greencastle-Antrim.  We are now ready to start that process, but your help is needed. 

They require a minimum of 180 photographs up to a maximum of 240.  The museum has about 250 dry glass slide negatives that were taken by G. Fred Ziegler and his father, but only a small amount of them are identifiable or usable.  Old postcards such as those printed by Carl’s Book Store and Morgenthal are now able to be used because of computer scanners.  The museum’s collection of photographs continues to grow, especially with gifts such as Harold Pensinger’s photos, but we need your help.  Think of the old scrapbooks your grandmother or your great aunt Mary had that possibly could contain pictures of the town AND township or the townspeople. Did your parents or grandparents have a family business or work for a company or business in Greencastle-Antrim?   Chapter titles have not yet been chosen, but could include business and industry, historical or special event photos, landmarks, hostelries, homes, well-known townspeople, churches. 

I do not know what photographs may be out there and who may have them.  So, you need to come to me or any of the other directors of the museum. I am confident that our community will come forward and work together to make this book a reality.  Your original photographs will be handled with great care and will be returned to you, unless you would like to donate them to the museum.

This is an exciting project.  Hopefully, this book will be ready for sale next year during Old Home Week.  We have already discovered some never-before-seen photographs such as the one of the Greencastle Presbyterian Church taken some time before 1887, which accompanies this article. What else is out there?  Call Bonnie at 717.597.9325 or leave a message. What a wonderful way to honor the past by preserving the pictorial history of Greencastle-Antrim for future generations.

Annual Membership
July 1st kicked off AAMI’s annual membership campaign.  There has been a good response to date. If you have not yet returned your membership form, a form has been included with this newsletter for your convenience.  Please return it as soon as possible so that the membership records can be updated.  All membership cards will be sent out with the November newsletter.

Several new businesses have joined the museum membership through the addition of a Business Level membership, which is the equivalent to the individual’s Supporting Level.  Those businesses are the First National Bank, Graphics Universal, Miller-Bowersox Funeral Home, and Jefferson Paine Construction Company.   They join previous business members Dr. P. Mark Divelbiss, The Echo Pilot, Dr. G. William Thorne, Franklin Veterinary, and Zimmerman & Son Funeral Home.  We welcome these businesses along with the new individual and family members who have also joined, and say ‘thank you’ for your support. As always, the board of directors appreciates the long-standing support of our current members. 

Where and how is your membership donation used?  With the museum not being open to the public on a daily basis, it might be surprising to know that there is work that needs to be done everyday, involving many people, in order to keep the museum running. The behind-the-scenes areas are not seen by the public but are not that mysterious to understand.  Daily operating expenses do not just include electric, gas, water and sewer, and telephone. There are expenses for exhibits such as tablecloths, display forms, props, etc. All bills need to be posted and paid and reports prepared.  Publication of about 225 newsletters every other month includes the cost of paper, envelopes, stamps, and copier expense, plus the time to compose, layout, copy, and complete the process of mailing. The same expenses and time apply (except for the mailing portion) to the visitors’ notebooks that are prepared for each exhibit. The archival quality products needed to properly care for the items in the museum’s collection are costly, but very necessary. Over 200 postcards are sent out to members every month involving time, printer ink, and postage. Maintenance of the website includes a monthly fee to the host and the time to keep it up to date. A speaker’s fee is given to the regionally and nationally known speakers that come to Greencastle several times a year. With over an acre of land and no lawn mower, the museum has the expense of paying someone to mow the grass.  And even non-profit museums have to file income tax reports, which require the expertise of a professional CPA. All of the above and more is required and involved in running Allison-Antrim Museum on a daily basis.

AAMI is a valuable resource for local history and is a place where the artifacts of Greencastle-Antrim’s heritage can be safely kept for anyone who comes seeking information.  People can enter through the front door or visit through the website.  Being located directly across the street from the school district campus, teachers and students have access, within five to ten minutes, to tangible artifacts and information that will connect them to Greencastle-Antrim’s roots.  Since the museum’s door opened, we have been working with teachers to share the story of G-A’s past. 

As AAMI continues to grow and becomes better known, it will become a leader in increasing the economic vitality of Greencastle-Antrim through cultural tourism.  If visitors come from out-of-town or out-of-state, it is not unusual to have them inquire about eating and shopping in Greencastle.

Again, thank you all for your membership support of Allison-Antrim Museum.

September and October Monthly Exhibit
“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die; a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,” Ecclesiastes 3: 1 – 2a; 4

The special exhibit for the months of September and October is titled “A Time to Mourn.” Ryan Berger, Boonsboro, Maryland will share a portion of his collection of mourning memorabilia. Ryan, an undertaker, works for the Keeney and Basford Funeral Home in Frederick, Maryland.  Although now living in Boonsboro, he is familiar with Greencastle-Antrim through family ties.  His father Wayne and his uncles grew up in Greencastle.

His interest in mourning memorabilia comes from his occupation and he started collecting pieces about ten years ago.  Ryan’s first piece was a gift of a stick pin made of hair. His collection contains hundreds of items and includes door badges, jewelry, a reverse painted pin, glassware, art, drape (a form of pressed glass), a bouquet of flowers made of hair and displayed in a shadow box, original books on mourning, Currier and Ives prints, and commemorative pieces that were made upon the deaths of Presidents Lincoln, McKinley, and Garfield.  His collection spans the period of circa 1850 to circa 1930.

Select pieces of mourning memorabilia from the collections of David Thomas, Fairfield will enhance the exhibit.  From the museum’s collections, the Philadelphia Inquirer newspapers from April 15 – 28, 1865 will be displayed.

Many cultures, Egyptians, Native Americans, and Judaism, have had mourning rituals since the beginning of time.  Even in modern times, the mourning rituals are gradually changing.  Less black is seen at funerals, and more memorial services are being held in place of funerals.  Some things that we take for granted today are actually mourning rituals that began years ago.  They include the choosing of certain clothes for the deceased, tucking special jewelry or mementoes in the casket to be buried with the loved one, and having make-up applied so that they look as they did when living. Some of the rituals from the early to mid 20th century that are no longer practiced include the wearing of black arm bands and draping homes in black crepe.

The Victorian era in England and the U.S. was perhaps the period that was most entwined in the strict rituals of mourning as established by Queen Victoria, upon the death of her husband Prince Albert. Books on mourning etiquette were written to guide society, especially women, through the grieving of loved ones.  Relationship to the deceased dictated the length of time – parents were mourned for months or years but a distant relative or cousin may only warrant a number of weeks.  Full mourning of 6 to 24 months was dictated for the death of one’s husband. 

Fashion was another big part of mourning etiquette.  Except for a lady’s underwear, everything worn from head to toe was black, including accessories such as gloves, mitts, shawls, and mantels. In the middle and upper-middle classes, a black bonnet of crepe, silk, or cotton was a must, which would have included a silk veil of shoulder length to mid-calf.  The length was the lady’s preference. The ladies in the poorer segments of society imitated the best they could.

If it could be afforded, black crepe was draped over windows to limit the light; mirrors were also covered. Black wreaths were hung on doors, announcing to the community that the home was in mourning.

Before the early part of the 20th century, death was very much an accepted part of life for all members of a family.  Because there were no funeral homes, as we know them today, the bodies were laid out in the parlors and bedrooms of the deceased’s home for one to four days before burial.  A twenty-four hour vigil was kept by the body.

Portraits of children and other family members that were painted posthumously from the corpses may seem to be very morbid to us today, but it was their way of maintaining the continuity of the family and remembering their loved ones as they were during life.  After all, there were no cameras.  One of the fairly new mourning rituals of today is to have a picture board of photographs of the deceased at the funeral home showing them throughout their life. 

Expressions of grief were found in jewelry made of hair, needlework, special framed prints on which the loved one’s name could be printed, artwork, glassware, and many more things.

This special exhibit, taken from a fascinating era of social history, will allow visitors to step back in time and understand with greater clarity the lives of their ancestors.   From the booklet, “The After-Life, Mourning Rituals and the Mid-Victorians,” by Karen Rae Mehaffey, “Beyond being a visual display what could be morbidly interpreted as the celebration of death, for the Victorians, it was a celebration of the love they shared with one another, and a celebration of the spirit world they continually sought. 

 

September General Meeting
The guest speaker for the September 11 general meeting will be Dr. Thomas P. Lowry who will be speaking on "What Our History Teachers Didn't Tell Us: Sex in the 18th and 19th Centuries." 

Dr. Lowry, a graduate of Stanford University, studied both history and medicine. He is a retired psychiatrist and a former researcher for Masters and Johnson. Lowry has also appeared as a commentator on a number of television documentaries on the History Channel. He is the author of a number of books on the Civil War, including The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell: Sex in the Civil War. Original sources, such as letters, diaries of prostitutes, journals, and court records among other sources served as the foundation for his book which delves into the sexual activity that took place during the prim and proper Victorian era.  Dr. Lowry’s social history presentation on “Sex in the 18th and 19th Centuries” will be given in a factual but tasteful manner.

October Annual Dinner Meeting
The 2003 annual dinner meeting will be held on Thursday, October 9 at 6:30 p.m. at the Antrim House Restaurant.  An election for four board seats will be held.  The directors whose current terms end December 31, 2003 are Tracy Burger, Harry Myers, Mary Jo Sprankle, and Bonnie Shockey.  Nominations will be taken from the floor in addition to
those listed on the ballot.  Out of courtesy to those you may like to nominate and vote for, please ask their permission to place their name on the ballot before doing so.

Reminiscing Tapes
The 1998 and 2001 Old Home Week Reminiscing video tapes are available at the Besore Library.  They may be checked out for one week.  If anyone wants a copy of any of the tapes, they may request a copy be made for them at the cost of $10 each which will cover the costs and benefit the museum.

Martin’s Mill Bridge Commemorative Coins Available
The Greencastle Rotary had commemorative coins made of the Martin’s Mill Covered Bridge in 1995.  The Rotary decided to give the remaining coins to the museum to sell as fund raiser.  The coins are available for purchase on a first-come basis at a cost of one dollar each.

What’s Been Happening

  • Bonnie spoke to both the Greencastle and Mercersburg Rotary Clubs.
  • As the sponsor of the July 24 Chamber of Commerce breakfast, AAMI was given five minutes during which time Bonnie shared information about the museum to those members of the business community who were present.  Through that presentation, three businesses joined the museum membership.
  • A large pictorial display board has been designed as a visual aid to be used at special events and while making presentations to community groups.

 

 

Recent Acquisitions

  • On monochromatic watercolor painting of the five-arch bridge which used to span the Conococheague Creek, about one mile west of Greencastle

A gift from Oliver Goetz

  • One each - photograph, pennant, and beanie from the GHS 1930 graduating class

                                                            A gift from Pauline W. Rinehart

  • One small, green, wooden, folding chair with slated back and seat with C.V.R.R. stamped on the front of the backrest 

                                                     A gift from Harold Hoffman

  • 61 assorted 8” x 10” black and white photographs, circa 1910 to 1954 of Greencastle, including Old Home Week photographs, which were taken by the late Harold Pensinger. 

                                                     A gift from Evelyn Pensinger

  • Greencastle report cards, grades 1 – 11 (1921 – 1933), of Anna Hoffman and a handwritten paper about what it was like to study abroad 

                                                     A gift from J. B. Oerding

  • One Sunshine Packing Company can.  Fruit was processed in a building behind the old Greencastle Cold Storage on North Carlisle Street.  The cans were then stored in Greencastle Cold Storage until Sunshine Packing had orders for them.  This can belonged to Helen Mummert who worked for Sunshine Packing Co.

                                                    A gift from Paul Mummert

  • One canvas coal bucket from Omwake Brothers which was used to deliver coal from the truck to the old cook stoves in homes

 

Assorted wood patterns from the Landis Tool Company Greencastle plant retrieved after the building burned as told by Lloyd “Tuck” McDonald and Phil Cooper to Glenn C. Stine

 

One suitcase of numerous newspapers (Echo Pilots and others), clippings, photographs, and cards from about 1910 to present

                                                Gifts from Glenn C. Stine

  • One copy of a study completed by Skelly and Loy, Inc., Harrisburg which included archaeological investigations, environmental studies, photographs, and historical research on the Brown’s Mill bridge replacement.

 

Calendar of Events

Thursday, September 11, 7 p.m., Monthly Meeting, Evangelical Lutheran Church: Dr. Thomas Lowry on "What Our History Teachers Didn't Tell Us: Sex in the 18th and 19th Century." See article.

Sunday, September 14, 1 – 4 p.m. and Thursday, September 18, noon – 3 p.m.:  Open House – Mourning Exhibit from the collections of Ryan Berger and David Thomas.  See Article for more information.

Sunday, October 12, 1 – 4 p.m. and Thursday, October 16, noon – 3 p.m.: Open House – Mourning Exhibit from the collections of Ryan Berger and David Thomas.

Thursday, December 4, noon to 3 p.m., Friday, December 5, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., and Sunday, December 7, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.: Holiday Open House  PLEASE NOTE the Sunday open house is on the FIRST Sunday of the month.

Tuesday, December 9, 6:30 p.m., Holiday Meeting, Antrim House Restaurant:  Coleen Clark returns again to Greencastle to present a program on the songs and music from the 1930’s and 1940’s.  Dinner reservations are requested by Friday, December 5 by calling Bonnie at 717.597.9325.

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