By Claudia Loucks
Geneseo Current
Area residents are invited to a Garden Party to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Geneseo Historical Museum. The party will be from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 10, in the memorial gardens of the museum at 205 South State St., Geneseo.
Light refreshments will be served.
Melanie Rice, curator/director of the Geneseo Historical Museum, will serve as hostess. Rice was named to the post with the retirement of Angie Snook, who was named curator in 1996, but her involvement with the museum’s place in history started nearly 20 years earlier during her time as a volunteer and board member.
In addition to the Garden Party, the museum currently is featuring an exhibit of wedding dresses from the last century.
Rice said there are 103 wedding dresses in the exhibit which will be displayed at the museum through Aug. 31.
The museum is open to visitors from 10 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, or by appointment by calling 309-944-3043.
Information about the GHM from 2010 records state that the history of the museum dates back to 1972 when the Geneseo Historical Association's first museum consisted of two rooms in the caretaker’s home at Richmond Hill Park. Interest in the project was widespread and donations and membership grew quickly.
Vast amounts of memorabilia and artifacts came pouring through the doors. By 1976, the museum’s rooms were bursting at the seams and it was apparent the museum needed a new home.
Fortunately, the Geneseo Public Library (on State St.) had just moved into a new location and made the historic Hammond Library, built in 1898, available to the Historical Association as a permanent museum and it remained in that location for the next 20 years.
The story began to change in 1996 when once again, the museum was full and the association’s board became concerned about the future of the lease arrangement they had enjoyed with the library. An effort was launched to explore alternatives.
Once again, fortune smiled in the form of another building which was just coming on the market – a huge, Italianate structure almost directly across from the street of the location of their location. Not only was it much larger, but it also was of historical importance. The first of its bricks had been laid in 1855, just 20 years after the arrival of Geneseo’s first settlers. What had been, since the days of the Civil War, two joined homes were divided into four apartments early in the 1900’s. With 27 rooms and 9,000 square feet of usable space, this handsome mansion could easily display the museum’s existing treasures, with room to spare for an expanded office, storage and other amenities.
The memorial gardens at the rear of the Geneseo Historical Museum will be the setting for the upcoming Garden Party to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the museum. (Photo By Claudia Loucks)
History notes have it that “the structure and appointments (some of them original) were all in excellent repair.”
A TIMELINE – “RICHARDS – THEDE HOUSE’ – “THE GENESEO HISTORICAL MUSEUM”
-The north home (of what is currently the GHM) was built in 1855 by George Richards and Ann Cora Gilmore Richards. Mr. Richards served as president of the city board 1861-62 and joined the newly- formed Presbyterian Church as a charter member in 1863. They had one daughter, Georgian. George Richards was born in Vermont and listed in 1840 as one of Genesee’s early settlers. They were also part of the group of abolitionists to form the colony. The home was on the Freedom Trail for run-away slaves, and a hiding hole is still displayed in the basement of the home.
-Second home built around 1867 by two brothers – Hiram and George Wilson who were born in New York. At the time they were both associated with the First National Bank of Geneseo. George and his wife occasionally gave memorable social affairs, such as their daughter Emma’s wedding reception.
-James McBroom, another well-known businessman, was the next owner from 1921-1957. During this time period the home became four (later five) apartments.
-In 1957, Phyllis Gates, a nurse for Dr. Young bought the home. She saw that the “McBroom” home was lovingly cared for. Even with it being apartments, she maintained the grand interior and the home’s integrity. Its garden area was a show place. Mrs. Rosalie Thede inherited the beautiful home form her mother. She remained the owner until Nov. 1, 1996, when the Geneseo Historical Association purchased the home for the present museum.
-June 1, 1998, the museum opened its doors to the public.
-In 2009, a special addition to the museum was built for meetings, programs and children and adult classes. In April of 2010, the new “Stees-Keppy Education Addition” opened.
-In Oct. 2012, the “carriage house” project was started on the Center St. museum complex and it opened in July of 2013. The educational building for both young and old exhibits old carriages and sleights, Dan Patch horse racing memorabilia, Hennepin Canal racing boats, early agricultural tools and equipment, Native American displays and the children’s log cabin.
-The three-level carriage house opened its doors to the public in October of 2013.
Even though she will not be at the museum on a daily basis, the popularity of the programs she began while serving as curator will continue with programs she has scheduled for the next two years.
Snook was named curator in 1996, but her involvement with the museum’s place in history started nearly 20 years earlier during her time as a volunteer and board member.
She was instrumental in the purchase of the Italianate house for the museum, which had been located in the original Geneseo Public Library building on State St.
“As president of the Geneseo Historical Museum, I knew that house would be the perfect setting for the new museum,” she said.
The museum board submitted a bid to purchase the home and when that bid was opened by Rosalie Thede, owner of the home, Snook recalled Thede said, ‘That is what my mother always wanted.’”
In November of 1996 the Thede home became the Geneseo Historical Museum’s permanent home.
“We were working on a fund to pay for the new museum,” Snook said. “Don Stocks was the curator at that time and somehow found a way to save $113,000 during his 25-year tenure. The late Marie Lodge, a museum board member, gave the Historical Association a $100,000 loan “to get the museum up and going,” Snook said.
During the museum’s move from the “old library” to its new home, Stocks became ill and died.