Spring — no it isn’t here yet – certainly not as I am home, looking out at what is to be 3 to 5 inches of snow that I know I will have to shovel. But the winter goes so fast you have to think about and plan for spring. I remember thinking “When Christmas is over, there will be plenty of time to do the stuff I’d really enjoy doing — sewing, reading, even cleaning out a drawer or two.” Now, there’s that word…CLEANING.

Yes, even here at the Corner of the Past. Or should I say especially here at the Corner of the Past, we have to plan all winter. As we have grown, so have the responsibilities. Do you know that we now have a house, a machine shed, a barn, three log cabins, two historic cabins that were once part of the Liberty Lodge resort, a migrant cabin, saw mill, a granary, a summer kitchen, a chicken coop, and even an outhouse (a display, of course). Every one of our buildings is authentic — no reproductions. They have come from our surrounding area; donated by friends of the community who want to see these examples of Sister Bay history preserved. I should also say that each building is filled with donations of appropriate artifacts. It’s a lot to take care of.

Our April board meeting agenda will undoubtedly have a line something like “Organize cleaning committees to prepare for May opening.” There’s that word again — cleaning. I can’t help thinking each year, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could afford a cleaning service?’ Well, that’s out of the question for several reasons — one of which is, deep cleaning takes time and care when handling antiques. Each item has been someone’s treasure that they have chosen to entrust to the Sister Bay Historical Society to care for. Of course, we accepted their treasure, and now it is up to our staff to preserve it.

Up to this time, several loyal members have volunteered to tackle the house, the machine shed, the migrant cabin and the barn. Now, as our collection of buildings has grown, it will be necessary to find more help. The suggestion has been made that we reach out to our members and the community asking volunteers to ‘adopt’ a building. A group of friends can accomplish a lot while they share their news, tell stories, reminisce about their grandma’s house and how she used to have ‘one of these.’ Gee, this is a good idea. This could work. Now, all we need to do is to spread the word. What if we rewarded each volunteer free admission to the Corner of the Past museum in 2017? Cleaning could be fun!

Roberta Kutlik
Curator
March 2017