2006: Summer School Elementary Students Tour Museum

By SHEILA CHITWOOD/ for The Herald  —  For 18 children from the Oakridge elementary summer school, a trip to the historical museum was an educational and enlightening event.

Del Spencer, curator of the museum at that time, had each child choose an object to be talked about. The children asked questions and offered their own interpretations of what an artifact might have been used for.

Antique toys were a favorite, of course, as were Indian arrowheads, George the stuffed bald eagle, and the nearly extinct oddity known as the “typewriter.”

The kids turned the handle of a butter churn, pounded the pestle into a mortar bowl, and played music on an old-time organ.

Their noses twitched and their faces questioned the validity of some of the old-time salves and balms. They learned that Ex-lax looked like chocolate candy and mustard ointment smelled like root beer. Methialade was definitely not something they wanted on their scrapes and cuts in today’s world.

Everyone enjoyed looking at the old artifacts, but Kyndal and Hailey Stalcup were especially pleased to see the very first telephone switchboard in Oakridge. Their grandmother, Laura, had been just 17 years old when she had been employed working that machine.

After spending an hour inside the museum, teachers Cathy Spencer and Erin Gardner were more than ready to let the youngsters enter the backyard and climb aboard the old fire trucks, the logging truck, and the caboose.

When the children and their teachers were ready to leave, Spencer let each child choose a beautiful, polished rock to take home, compliments of the very generous Norman Husser.

One of the kids said it best when he shouted “Thanks. This was fun!”