The Muse: June 2007

Springtime at the Museum is a hive of activity! The House Tour was a resounding success--over 150 guests toured homes and churches in the town of Amherst! Many, many thanks to Tour Chairman Frances Butler and a large corps of volunteers! The tour would not have been possible without you!

And we didn’t stop with that! The following weekend the Village Garden Club held their first GardenFest at the Museum. The VGC has always kept the Museum looking wonderful and this is just one more facet to a great relationship with the Club. Artists abounded, children sang, the smell of freshly baked cakes and cookies wafted through the air, and garden talk was heard everywhere. A perfect way to cap off Garden Week!

With the Madison Heights Library as cosponsors, we held a Padget Day the next weekend! Eighteenth and nineteenth century craftsmanship was demonstrated with wood, textiles, music and animal husbandry. Padget’s heroic rescued was recounted by Kyle Richardson. Thank you, Chairman Valli Ritchie and volunteers!

And we’re not done yet! Don’t forget the Yard Sale!

Holly Mills, Director

Make plans now to attend our Annual Membership Meeting on Saturday, September 15, at Winton at 11:00 a.m.

Since America is celebrating its 400th anniversary, a very special guest will attend - Thomas Jefferson, portrayed by Bill Barker of Colonial Williamsburg. Mr. Barker has appeared around the world and on many television shows; he has done local programs at Poplar Forest and truly brings history alive. You don't want to miss this!

Jefferson had extensive contacts in Amherst County - particularly with the family of Hugh Rose of Geddes. He owned property in the county and did legal work for various clients. (If you’d like to brush up on Mr. Jefferson’s Amherst County connections, see our book From Days Gone By... on sale at the Museum Gift Shop.) Add to the festivities by dressing in period costumes.

Details will appear in the August Newsletter, but seating is limited, so make your reservations now by calling the Museum, 946-9068. This will be a day to remember! Reserve your place now!

The Museum's annual Yard Sale will be on Saturday, June 2. We welcome lightly used kitchen items, decorative pieces, linens, artwork, bric-or-brac, etc; no clothes, please. Baked items will also be welcomed. Bring your items during the week prior to Sale Day. Your donations help raise money to run the Museum, so please help!

• Kidd Family Cemetery photographs [Nelson County], donated by Betty Elliott
• The Mills of Bedford County, published by the Bedford City/County Museum; donated by Doug Cooper, along with some newspaper clipping about the Connecticut Tobacco workers’ reunion
• 1812 Ancestor Index, published by the National Society United States Daughters of 1812, volumes I and III. Donated by Mrs. Gary Jennings.
• New files for the following families have been started: Cash, Haile/Hale, Milsted and Vaughan. The Troy-Hill House and the Staples Cabin have just been added to the Houses and Farms files.
• Heartbeats of Nelson, by Paul Saunders, 2007. This 640 page volume of photographs, interviews and stories about Nelson County has received rave reviews. Index, maps.
• Where the James River Flows, Beautiful Mountains of Virginia and To Virginia They Came; all on CDs. Locally composed music by Alonza Lee and Steve Wilson.
• Fabric Memories: A Project of Amherst Glebe Arts Response and Fairmont Crossing, video and DVD formats. Copyright 2007. Accompanies the quilt pieces created for the exhibit. Residents of Fairmont Crossing tell their stories of coming to Amherst County, growing up in Amherst County and living in Amherst County.
  
  

  Above, Lynn Kable, of Amherst Glebe Arts Response, leads a discussion about the Fabric Memories Project. Next to Lynn, from left, Mae Creasy and family members, Mitsuko (Mitzi) Burks, Anna Heath and artist Nancy McDearmon. If you missed the exhibit, you can still see the video at the Museum.

  
  
• Religious Freedom Service at Clifford Baptist Church, 5 May 2007, sponsored by the Amherst County Jamestown 400th Anniversary Committee. CD format. Includes music and histories of St. Mark’s Episcopal, Ebenezer Baptist, Mount Olive Baptist, Amherst Presbyterian and early Methodism.

Richard Maxham and fellow model hobbyists at work on the diorama--Photos courtesy of the Renegade Rag.

On June 12, the Amherst County Museum and Historical Society will host a reception to welcome a gift to its collection from Richard Maxham, a senior at E.C. Glass High School in Lynchburg. The donation, a project Richard created to achieve rank as an Eagle Scout, is a diorama showing Amherst County’s Fort Riverview as it existed during the final months of the Civil War.

Fort Riverview was built circa 1863 to protect the six Mile Bridge over the James River, a span vital to railroad traffic for troops and supplies carried into Lynchburg. The terrain there still shows remains of an earthen fort and the earthworks around it.

Maxham, who is an award-winning fine scale model hobbyist, visited Fort Riverview to study its dimensions and history, then implemented his project with fund raising and by recruiting volunteers to help build the diorama during work sessions he planned. It will be displayed in the Whitehead Gallery at the Museum.

Each display case in the Zinsser-Singleton Gallery shows a collections of memories from Amherst County history with a different theme right now.

The first of these mini-exhibits holds a photograph and mementos of Capt. Robert Barnes Ware, who died June 6, 1944, in the D-Day Invasion.

Others feature souvenir programs and award ribbons from the Amherst County Fair, a collection of photos of the old CCC Camp on Route 60, a group of items related to home sewing, and a sampling of materials from the David French Collection. This important, recent acquisition is listed item by item on the ACM&HS website's Library link.

Of special interest are a display and scrapbook on loan to the Museum by Mrs. Glenn Ricketts. Her husband, W. Glenn Ricketts, coached Dixie Youth League players from 1959 to 2001. Anyone who played on one of his teams will want to see these mementos.

You hear it everywhere--children are our future, and that includes the Museum. Whether it is thirty years, fifty years, or a hundred years from now, it is the generations after us that will be supporting today’s institutions. How do we go about ensuring that the Museum will have a professional leadership and a strong supporting membership? By starting early with teaching them the value of their heritage. In spite of all the talk that no one is interested in history or genealogy until retirement, there are exceptions to this "rule." While it is true that many don’t have time until retirement, it is our responsibility to cultivate the interest as soon as they are old enough to learn mother, father, grandmother and grandfather.

In order to encourage interest in history, the Museum participates in several different ways to engage our children. The TimeTravelers passport program is a statewide program that encourages our youth to visit museums across Virginia. Last year the museums in the Lynchburg area started a passport program for the Lynchburg area museums--the Supermuseums program. This summer our children can look forward to learning about archaeology. This fall when Thomas Jefferson speaks at our annual membership meeting, our children will meet him in school.

In order to encourage our children to participate in these programs, a Clio’s Club pin will be awarded to children who attend at least three Museum events a year. Clio is the muse of history--the classical Greek muses were the personification of inspiration.

CONTEST: There are nine daughter-muses of Mnemosyne (memory): Identify all nine Muses and submit your answer in writing, mailing it to the Museum (P.O. Box 741, Amherst, VA, 24521 ). First prize is a coloring book of choice (Eligible children are age 12 and under.)

• Phyllis Burnley, Monroe, VA
• Vivian Lee DeWald, Amherst, VA
• Peggy Thompson, Fayetteville, NC

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