Museum of Western Reserve Farms & Equipment

More changes have come to the museum this Summer. With the building of the “new” blacksmith shop, we have decided to turn the old blacksmithy into a wood working shop.

We built a dividing wall in the 30×20 (former) Hotz building, creating a larger front room for the 19th century tools, and a smaller back room for the more modern equipment that is used when more speed and ease is needed in construction

We will name the new shop “E. Palmer. Woodworking. Casket Making.”

Ebenezer Palmer was a close friend of the Great Abolitionist, John Brown, when Brown lived in Richfield. They used to spend late nights talking about the Underground Railroad, The Bible, and the doings of the Church they attended together. When Brown’s four children died of Diphtheria within days of one another, Palmer built the four caskets in which they were buried. Palmer spent nearly his whole life in Richfield and built many of the older houses that still stand in Richfield and surrounding communities.

The woodworking shop contains many of the same tools Ebenezer would have carried in his tool box, as he walked in the early morning hours to the next house he was building. Also on display are two very rare pit saw blades that were used to saw lumber before a saw mill came to Richfield. It was amazingly tough work hand sawing or hand hewing all the lumber needed for barns, sheds and homes before steam or water powered mills were built. Ebenezer Palmer and the other men of those days, shortly after the founding of Ohio, were far tougher than the men of these more modern times.

Have you ever wondered about shopping carts? Everyone uses one if they are buying more than an item or two when they grocery shop. They are practically as common as cars. But where did they come from?

Before their invention, folks just carried a basket or bag to tote their intended purchases to the checkout. But store owners began to notice that often purchases were limited by what a shopper could carry. They wanted to sell more, so they tried several solutions. One grocer installed a raised 15″ wide track on which shoppers could push a wheeled basket. It was something like a RR track. It proved wildly unsuccessful. Other owners tried hiring helpers who would carry groceries for the customers. The help would carry the full baskets to the counter then take another empty basket to the shopper. This was also quite inefficient and sometimes confusing. Other grocers tried little pull carts that looked much like a child’s toy wagon. But pulling your groceries behind you and bending down to load and unload the conveyance also proved a poor solution.

Then one day in 1936, Sylvan Goldman was sitting at his desk in the office of one of his Humpty-Dumpty grocery stores and noticed a folding chair. He took the idea of a new kind of cart to one of his store’s handymen, Fred Young, and Sylvan and Fred worked out the design & kinks so that it was steady and wouldn’t tip over or unexpectedly fold up. Thus the (nearly) modern shopping cart was invented. After a short struggle to get the public to accept the carts (many men said they could carry their own baskets, thank you very much, and some women had had enough of pushing something that resembled a baby carriage) but it didn’t take long for the new shopping carts to prove very successful and were soon used in groceries across America.

If you would like to see (and use) one of the first grocery carts ever made, stop by for a visit at the museum Gen’l Store. We have two on hand, given to the museum by Gary Strietlow, who had collected the carts many decades ago from a closed meat market in Cleveland.

We have many photography groups come to the museum for outings. We of course ask no charge. We simply appreciate them enjoying the museum and the many opportunities it provides for great pictures.

When I was quite young, first grade or so, my younger sister and I used to walk a long way down the gravel road to visit Mrs. Garman (back then there was almost no traffic and nobody worried about “stranger danger”. Before the freeways, Richfield was a very sleepy little farm community.). She was in her nineties or so, and lived alone. Her husband Howard was passed, her daughter also gone, her sons long since moved on. She had given up her chickens. The farm was sold. She was alone. -Except for her clocks. When you walked in her back door, there were ticking clocks everywhere. It was quite a wonderous sight for young eyes. It must have taken her some time to get them all woundup every morning.

I’ve often wondered if that experience caused my lifelong liking of old windup wall and shelf clocks.

Several years ago a fellow came along to do some trading. I had a Soap Box Derby car that didn’t fit the museum and he had clocks. Lots of clocks. Soon I had clocks all over my house, just like Julia did. But even better, he had a clock maker’s table. I didn’t know it at the time, but that table was to reveal quite a story.

Back in 1864 John C. Dueber founded the Dueber Watch Case Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1888 he bought the Hampton Watch Co., then moved both companies to Canton, Oh. There the combined company grew to employ 10% of all Canton workers. Unfortunately, by the time of the Great Depression the company failed from lack of sales. But a quirk of fate was to give the once thriving company a second, then third life.

Communist Russia needed watches (I suppose when you want to lead worldwide revolution your army needs to know what time it is). They tried to buy several watch factories in Europe, but the Europeans wouldn’t sell to them. So the Soviets turned to the U.S. They settled on Hampden. Soon 28 train car loads of equipment and parts were on their way to their new home outside of Moscow. It proved to be so important that when the Nazi’s invaded Russia, the factory was packed up once again and moved farther into the Russian interior.

So now, ninety years later, the Hampden (renamed the First Moscow Watch Factory) still produces watches. While back home in the States, all that remains of the once mighty employer of so many Canton residents is the single watch maker’s desk now residing in the museum’s new Hampden Clock Shop.

Most every town had a harness shop at one time, some towns several. Richfield’s most well known shop was run by Peter Allen. It stood at the corner of Streetsboro and Broadview Rds.

These days, early in the 21st Century, harness shops have become quite rare outside of Amish communities. There was an old gentleman in Richfield who repaired harness and tack out of a small “yard” barn behind his house, until he finally retired in the mid ’90’s from his almost hobby like work. And years ago there was a harness shop over towards Wadsworth. But now, if you need something repaired, you have a choice of traveling north an hour to the Amish communities around Middlefield, or go south an hour to the Amish shops in Holmes County. We almost always go south. We have many Amish friends there, and we still have quite a number of Amish relatives in the Charm area (our great grandfather’s farm was just south of Charm).

We have occasion to visit a number of harness & buggy shops down in the area, but our favorite is found along a long dirt road, south of Kidron. It’s run by a really nice gentleman who is there when he’s there, and isn’t when he’s not. When he’s not, you can go on down the “drive” another half mile or so to his farm. I asked him one time why he walks such a distance to go to his shop and he said he didn’t like to bother the horse. So then I asked why he didn’t ride a bicycle since it would be so much easier. He got the strangest look like he couldn’t figure out what I was talking about, then finally replied that the Bishop of the house church didn’t allow air filled tires.

Over the course of years I’ve known him, he has done a great job of repairing and oiling the many sets of museum harness I have brought him. He’ll never be wealthy, he charges very little, ..in part because he only works for Amish (and me). I have also bought several other things from him, including a old, old (but still usable) heavy duty, leather sewing, treadle sewing machine.

But now, at long last, the museum has it’s own harness shop. In style, look and use it greatly resembles the Peter Allen Harness Shop that operated from 1880 to 1908 in Richfield. Along the long wall are a series of windows with a sewing machine at each light. There is a large trough for dipping harness in Neats Foot oil. In one corner is a stack of trunks for sale, just as Peter sold trunks. Down the center of the shop is a nearly ancient table that has served for years as cutting and assembly bench for harness. And hanging from many metal hooks around the walls are nearly countless sets of harness and tack collected from now long gone area farms including the Mueller, King, Sebecky, Knopp, Krone and Morris Farms ..and of course others. I have wondered about all the horses that had labored under those sets of leathers. I have seen a few old pictures of a couple of them, even heard their names. But now, they and their masters are long gone and only the harness remains.

I’ve spent most of the last two weeks in the “new” shop, …carting in equipment, getting it running, sorting and hanging tack. It took a couple hours just to attempt to sort, match and hang all the many hames the museum has collected. Hames come in matched sets, fitting and clamping to each side of a horse collar. Then the harness attaches to the hames so the horse can pull its load. I have several dozen of the (sometimes all wood, sometimes all metal, sometimes wood and metal mixed) devices. But I could only find three matched sets. I have no idea what the farmers I got the hames, halters and harness from did with the other half of so many of the hames.

I’ve also added quite a number of shoe and boot making tools, machines and lasts, including an eight foot long shoe fitting, grinding and polishing machine. It’s rather uncommon to see those machines anymore. People just don’t much have their shoes repaired these days. Imports have made new (but much less long lasting) shoes and boots cheaper.

Another couple days and it’ll be a great and interesting shop to visit. It’s a nice step in time, with the rich smells of oil, the creak of leather, the chatter of the treadle sewing machines, and the hundred year old brick floor, …all housed in one of the oldest remaining barns in Northern Ohio.

    Human history and the art of war was forever changed with the invention of firearms. Gunpowder made it happen. The availability, or lack of, gunpowder often meant the winning or loss of a battle. In American history this was most important early in the War of Independence. At the Siege of Boston, the Colonials were able to trap the British forces on the then peninsula of Boston, and eventually to force the British to retreat to Halifax in Nova Scotia, Canada. It was the first great battle of the Revolution, and allowed the Americans the self confidence to pursue the war and eventually gain independence. But, at one point during the nearly 11 month siege, each of the Colonial troops were down to their last 1/2 pound of gun powder. Had the British known the sorry state of supplies they surely would have attacked and won the day, and perhaps have ended the revolution before it had barely begun. Fortunately, as the Colonials became better prepared for war, supplies of gunpowder became more available.

Gun powder is composed of salt peter (potassium nitrate), charcoal and sulfur. When gun powder was first produced there was no science to explain why it worked. People just knew that mixing its parts together produced a powder that exploded. Because there was no chemical understanding, the recipes for its production varied widely, and was especially dependent on the quality of it parts, most particularly the quality of the salt peter.

Sulfur and charcoal are easy, they can be dug or produced in abundance. Salt peter is another matter. It is produced by the mixing together and rotting of plant material, manure, and urine for a period of usually six months. Salt peter (niter) crystals precipitated out of this mixture and were then gathered, then refined. Or, salt peter can be gathered from certain caves, most commonly located in Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky and Alabama. Dirt from the caves was dug and placed in large wood troughs, then water was poured over the dirt to extract out the salt peter or niter.

But the key part of the production of the salt peter was to mix it with water and cook it in kettles to further refine it. Without the kettles, it couldn’t be refined enough to make effective, reliable gun powder. Without the kettles, the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Civil War may have had very different outcomes.

Shortly after the Civil War the chemical industry became much more sophisticated and much better explosives were developed. And the once so important kettles were no longer needed. There are very few left, with most long forgotten or consumed in the scrap metal drives of the World Wars.

There are several still in caves located within National Parks in the South. The DuPont Chemical Co. has two kettles (used by the DuPont’s in the early days of their company) which are displayed at their museum on their original manufacturing grounds. And there is one of these now very rare, and once so important, kettles at this museum.

Several days ago I decided to set up a camera display in the (new) Gen’l Store. The museum has had a number of them in storage for several years, and it was time to get them out. But when I got to looking at them they didn’t seem right. So research began, and I was soon to discover that the “cameras” were actually Magic Lanterns. And thus began a whole new field of learning I had known nothing about. –That’s one of the things I like so much about the museum. There’s always new things to learn, ~about things that are old.

Very few people these days know what Magic Lanterns are. But not so long ago, before computers and cell phones, before movies or TV, before the Silent Pictures, before there were even very many photographs, …there were Magic Lanterns. Just a bit over a hundred years ago, Magic Lanterns were the most common and well liked form of entertainment in the U.S. By some estimates there were 50,000+ traveling road shows of the projected pictures. And then they suddenly disappeared from use, and even disappeared from memory.

The magic lantern was an early type of image projector, developed in the 17th century. It used a concave mirror behind a light source to direct as much of the light as possible through a small rectangular sheet of glass – the magic lantern slide – on which was the painted or photographic image to be projected – and onward into a lens at the front. The lens was adjusted to focus the projection on a screen or wall.

Initially, candles or oil lamps were used, producing very dim projections. Improvements in lighting took the form of the Argand lamp from the 1790’s, limelight in the 1820’s, electric arc light in the 1860’s and finally the incandescent electric lamp.

The art of projection reached a high-point in the 1870-1880 period, with the magic lantern playing a very important part in Victorian society. Temperance and religious lectures were given, they were used in education, they helped in the demonstration of scientific principles, they helped relay the latest news of world events, and were used to create ‘phantasmagoria’ shows. By this time, images were being transferred to slides by photographic means, and then colored by hand.

One of the most interesting early uses of the lanterns was during church or religious gatherings. At the front of the sanctuary, or meeting room, a screen would be set up. A Magic Lantern was placed behind the screen so it could not be seen by the congregation. In the darkened church, at the point of the sermon most warning of the dangers of the devil, the lantern would be turned on showing a picture of a monster or some other evil being. The projectionist would then very quickly move the lantern away from the screen, causing the projected image to appear to grow larger. This would cause an effect of the monster charging at the crowd. And many folks were terrified. With reportedly much shouting, crying and even some repenting. An even scarier effect could be achieved by projecting the image on a cloud of smoke or incense, which would cause the devil to appear to move and waver.

Magic Lanterns brought wonderful lessons and entertainment to the public. They showed folks the many wonders of the world. They brought people together, unlike the many devices of today. They were fun and they are certainly missed by those few remaining who remember them.

-You can see the museum’s Magic Lanterns on display at the Gen’l Store. And if you ask, maybe we’ll turn one on to show you how they work.

We have been asked a number of times why we accept donations, but do not charge admission to the museum.

We see our “mission” as several fold: We really like saving historic buildings. We believe it is extremely important to save the tools and the knowledge of how to use them, of the many 19th Cent. trades. We feel it is also just as important to preserve the stories of family and farm life in the Western Reserve of the 19th Century. ….And we believe we should share all this wealth of history with as many folks as possible. That is one of the primary reasons we do not charge for visits to or use of the museum.

Our thinking on this question began to be formed over the many years I worked at another local historic village. Over a thirty year period I worked there a number of times. I ran the Wood Working Shop. I did general maintenance, and made repairs as needed to the Church, Jaeger House, Stow House, the farm barn, saw mill, and other buildings and displays. I also helped build several buildings including the Herrick House. At another time I built the administration offices in the basement of the visitors center. And I received a private contract to paint several of the houses. —There was virtually nothing I wasn’t intimately familiar with, or helped build. And yet, one time when I stopped by for a quick reminder of how one of the cabins was built, I was told I couldn’t go on the grounds. I needed a ticket. Thirty years of working there (off and on) and I wasn’t welcome.

This is something I never want to have happen here at Stone Garden Farm & Village. We want all folks to be welcome. And even more we want all folks to discover our American history, as it was lived by our ancestors and saved by us, not as a monetary transaction but simply shared by all. Let the public come to at least one place to learn and experience our Nation’s common story, without paying for the “privilege”.

–P.S. About those “donations”. Over the years we have been very grateful for all the many donations the Museum has received. Folks have given us many tractors, pieces of horse drawn equipment, furniture, buildings, washing machines, a fire truck, innumerable other things, …and sometimes even monetary donations. And, of course, many friends and acquaintances have donated untold hours of help. For all of it, we are most appreciative. It’s much of what helps this museum thrive.

~THE BARTELEMY/FULMER COVERLET, -FIVE GENERATIONS OF CARE.~

The Museum had a happy event the other day. Kyle & Carol Morison stopped by. They brought a beautiful coverlet, woven in 1847 by Jacob Bartelemy of New Britain, in Stark Co., Ohio. (Jacob is listed in the famous reference book on coverlets, “American Coverlets and Their Weavers. -Coverlets From the Collection of Foster & Muriel McCarl”.)

The red, white and blue coverlet is a Tied Beiderwand (which is a German term referring to the structure of the weave). The coverlet was woven using a Jacquard Attachment on the loom instead of using the much more commonly used heddles & harness. Jacquard equipped looms were almost always owned and used by full time, professional weavers and are now quite rare, with the few remaining examples in museums.

(The Jacquard Attachment was invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1804. It enabled looms to produce fabrics having intricate woven patterns. The loom was controlled by a number of punched cards laced together into a continuous sequence, or “chain”. Multiple rows of holes were punched on each card, with one complete card corresponding to one row of the design.  This mechanism is probably one of the most important weaving inventions as Jacquard shedding made possible the automatic production of unlimited varieties of pattern weaving. The term “Jacquard” is not specific or limited to any particular loom, but rather refers to the added control mechanism that automates the patterning.)

The coverlet remains in wonderful condition, in part because it has been so carefully protected by the descendants of the Fulmer Family. The Fulmer’s lived on the family farm in Greentown, Stark Co. (midway between Akron & Canton, Ohio). They purchased the coverlet directly from Jacob Bartelemy, in 1847. It was then handed down to daughter Belle Fulmer, hence to Merle Fulmer Ford, then to Ramona Ford Morison, to Kyle & Carol Morison, and finally to the Museum.

~THE LEWIS/LYFORD COVERLET. -A FAMILY’S HISTORY, THE HISTORY OF AMERICA~

A number of years ago I received a phone call from Louise Lewis, wife of Robert Lewis. They wanted to know if the Museum was interested in a barn beam loom. According to the family history written by Caroline Hutchins Lewis in 1941, the loom was made in the late 1600’s  (more than 100 years before the American Revolution) by a member of the Lyford family of Brookfield, New Hampshire. The loom was used by generations of the Lyford’s, until its last use by Betsy Lyford Hutchins. During the Civil War, she wove the red, white & blue coverlet which now resides in the Museum collection. The loom was then stored in the Lyford farm’s barn for a number of years, and finally moved to the attic of the farm house. The loom eventually was bequeathed to Caroline Hutchins Lewis, who moved the loom to her home in Baltimore, Maryland in 1941, during WW2. 72 years later her son, Robert, donated the loom, pictures, coverlet and written history to the museum in 2013.

~THE FRY COVERLETS. -A TWENTIETH CENTURY FARM FAMILY~

My family, the Fry’s, have been raising sheep on the family farm in Richfield Twp. for 62 years. When my brother, sisters and I were young, our parents used to take the sheep’s wool down to the Aling Wool Mill (later named Rastetter Wool Mill) near Kidron, Ohio.  Ailing would clean, card and weave our wool to our request. During a number of the early years of the farm’s wool production, our family choose to have coverlets made, each of a different color, and with a pine tree pattern around the edges of the coverlets to denote our raising of Christmas trees (1956 to present) on our farm. Each of us kids received a coverlet in the color of our choice. The Museum now counts Jim’s brown coverlet and his parent’s blue coverlet in the museum collection. The other still family owned coverlets are yellow, red and green. {Note: Rastetter was to eventually close its doors in 2002. Several years later when they sold the building, they donated several hundred balls of rug fabric to the Museum.} –Also pictured are two additional coverlets from the museum’s large collection.

~~For more information about American Coverlets, we recommend visiting or calling The National Museum of the American Coverlet, in Bedford, Pa. They are most helpful and wonderful folks.~~

The Museum is pleased to announce that, at long last, the Hamburg Horseshoeing and Jobbing building from Independence in Cuyahoga County, has transformed into the Hamburg Gen’l Store.

The building, which was originally a transition blacksmith shop in the center of old Independence (Mr. Hamburg originally shod horses and made repairs on buggies and wagons, then progressed into very early car repair as they were invented and came on the market.). The shop was two stories tall and 20×40 foot on a side. It had a later, smaller addition attached to one end.

The Museum purchased the building for $1.00 from the City of Independence, and moved it here several years ago. Because of the constant work of restoring the many other buildings moved here every year (we average 3 or 4 a year), we simply didn’t get the Hamburg finished and usable until this past Thanksgiving. We lowered the roof to be more compatible with the rest of the museum buildings and added a porch and a fireplace, but otherwise the building is much as it was when it stood on its original site. The back door is the same, the windows still open in their original locations, and the wonderful wood stairs and closet under still provide access to the second floor (now attic). Of perhaps special note are the Eastwood Gen’l Store shelves. Richfield has had quite a few stores over the years, including the Sykes Grocery at 21 & 303, Damon’s on 303 just west of center, and Eastwood’s next to the Underground (now Richfield Tavern in town center). The Museum has the last bit of Eastwood’s store, the green painted hanging shelves. They once again serve to hold (antique) grocery items “for sale”.

There’s still more to be done once the Christmas season is over, including more shelving and a permanent fireplace, but it’s a wonderful place to visit and shop for the many farm and museum products and hand crafted local gifts you will find on display.

P.S. If you click on individual picture, picture size will increase for better, more detailed, view.

Several years ago three friends and I drove over to Valley City, a favorite little town 40 minutes west of here. An old fellow had a very large barn cupola he wanted to donate to the museum. He told a story about a group of guys who planned to tear down a local barn, but wanted to save the ornate cupola set high on the peak of the steep roof. Nobody could figure out how to get it down. Finally one young fellow (whose family wasn’t there to stop him) took a rope and made the rather scary climb to the top of the roof. He tied the rope around the construction and threw the end of the rope off the back of the barn. He then tipped the cupola over and down the front of the building. The guys on the ground slowly lowered the quite heavy roof ventilator to the barn bridge by playing out the rope a bit at a time.

Unfortunately, the cupola then sat, unmoved, in the gentleman’s back yard for the next 50 years. When we first saw it, it looked really great. But, like so many other buildings I have looked at, it sat whole from simple gravity (and paint) holding it together, instead of being whole from structural integrity. It fell to pieces when we tried to move it.

And then was to happen one of my favorite parts of museum collecting. ….Serendipity.

I asked him what else he might have that might suit the museum. He took us over to a barn/garage he had at the back of the property. It was stuffed full of “stuff”. We looked in, managed to squeeze thru the door, pushed past a grindstone mounted to a table and picked our way over, behind, under, around, other mostly junk, to find twelve sections of wrought iron fence. He said it once surrounded and protected a cemetery in Grafton. He went on to say that when he was much younger the Grafton Trustees decided to replace the fence with something newer because the wrought iron needed fix’n and it was becoming a maintenance problem. Our new friend had picked it up, thinking he might use it some day, but instead put it away. And there it waited through the decades for our arrival.

We made a quick deal with him, loaded the fence onto the trailer and brought it home, …where it sat for another couple years. We had the same problem as the old gentleman, we also just hadn’t the time to fix and paint it. But, now, in this winter and spring of little snow and cold, we are finally repairing the broken and bent pieces, and painting it once again its original colors, -gloss black, with gold tipped spear points. We have fixed it to new posts and it now surrounds the museum’s Victorian Garden.

We have a number of gardens, trees and areas where passed friend’s ashes are placed. There’s Harvey’s Garden, the final resting place for our great friend and most excellent dowser Harvey Lisle; and Rill’s Tree, a Dawn Redwood she donated to the museum shortly before she passed (perhaps somehow knowing it might be her last place for resting in the shade). There’s a baby, lost many generations ago, buried in the front yard by the horse chestnut tree, a Vietnam Veteran amongst the ash trees and Mark is at the Stone Circle.

Now Laura has suggested that the Victorian Garden, with its “new” 120 year old wrought iron cemetery fence, be named Joyce’s Garden. She was a very well liked friend who was always so helpful to the museum and the gathering of its collections. Laura thought the naming appropriate because some time ago Joyce gave us two metal garden chairs. I then went to work with the welder and created two Victorian ladies sitting on the chairs (Laura thinks they may be one of my better art projects). And, as they ever so properly sit by the newly fenced garden, waving a friendly hello with their hair slightly mussed from the breeze, they always remember us to our missed friend Joyce, the lovely lady of Seville.

This has been a year without winter. There was little snow or cold in January. That was a very lucky thing for the museum. It gave us time for a very big outdoor job.

Arno is a friend of many years. He is one of those old guys that we like so well, and that many others, …don’t. He is just a friendly old cuss who seems to inspire certain reactions that aren’t always “pleasing” in most folks. But we like him. Once you get past his ways, he is a great story teller. His body is failing him now, but his mind is sharp. He can tell you stories about the local life you wouldn’t believe. –Along with his many tales, Arnie has also been an extremely dedicated collector.

Some months ago he fell in his home and his family found him several days later. He’s now living out his days in a care center. And his house has been sold. His children are becoming somewhat well seasoned in age, and were unable to clean and clear everything out. So they called us before the sale was final.

I had been over to visit him many times over the years, but had never really explored all he had. It was both awesome, and very, very daunting. The house, two garages and barn were stuffed. Lost in the piles of things were 5 cars, the most notable being a 1930 Franklin. We spent three weeks sorting, moving, hauling, …stuff. There were many days of loading scrap metal and taking it all to recycling. We burned enormous amounts of cardboard boxes and trash. Eventually three huge dumpsters were loaded and taken away. Arnie was a super collector (aka: well inventoried hoarder)!

All the work was a great benefit to the museum. The Franklin was sold to a Franklin collectors group in Pennsylvania to be restored (it was too modern for the museum), and the money will be used to acquire an earlier Model T. We found many automobiliana & gas station signs and license plates that now grace the “garage” at the museum. There was a wonderful 1950’s Shell gas pump, which will also be passed on in order to get a 1910 era pump (also for the garage). We found lots of parts for a 1936 Silver Streak Pontiac sedan, which also are being “converted” to acquire other museum car equipment, and there was all kinds of lifts, pumps and jacks that have become part of the museum. And then there were all the books, badges and buttons, all great for display and research.

It was quite the task, but well worth it. The only problem with it was how it again reminded me of how often guys spend their lives creating great collections, then it all drifts away in their later years. It seems such a loss that such fine assemblages of history are lost. Fortunately for Arno, and the museum, much of his collections will continue on.