We Have No Space

 

 How often have we heard from small museums “we have no space”?

 Maybe its true or we need to rethink the space we have.

 We are fortunate to have a large storage space we rent to people to house their RVs for the winter.

 However there is an used section that contains questionable shelving and wood that is basically beyond useable.
Time to sort through this, and that is exactly what a number of our volunteers have been doing this summer.
 We should have the first phase of our demolition complete before fall.
 Then we have the winter to rethink and plan how we can best utilize the “new found space”

Cupar Cemetery Mapping

Thank you to Linda Nameth for her many hours, actually more like months in her efforts to map and identify names and dates of people in the Cupar Cemetery. She intents to update this map and book once a year as our cemetery continues to have active burials. Thanks to her walkers, Linda and Jim Adam, and Lucille Ermel, who wandered the cemetery trying to identify and record headstones. Our town staff should also be thanked for supplies and computer access.

You can find the cemetery map on the Town of Cupar website.

A kiosk with map and book listing names location in cemetery and birth-death dates, when possible whether cremated or in casket and next of kin is located in the cemetery.

I have spent hours wandering through the cemetery looking for early settlers, finding their headstones and then losing track of where they were the next time I went out. So we now have a vital tool for family members and researchers.

Canada Summer Jobs

We are pleased to once again have received money from Canada Summer Jobs to hire a student for 8 weeks. Our last student Tenashia was with us for 2 summers and this year has been hired by The Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina as a summer student. We welcome this year Shelby who has just finished grade 11. We have kept her busy learning new skills: cataloguing new artifacts, including proper cleaning and storage. She has been scanning our latest collection book, scanning booklets and original photographs, assisting in rearranging displays and helping with our senior's tour. I can not believe 2 weeks has past. 

There are still more assignments to come.

 As we all know, as volunteers, there are quite a few things we always mean to get around to yet never have the time for. For me as a baby boomer I have enjoyed learning and exchanging ideas with a millennial. Hopefully Shelby and I will have time for a computer workshop . She will show me things on Windows 10 and I will show her how Mac functions.

1950's Summer Exhibit

At last the finishing touches to our summer exhibit on the 1950's. Thank you to volunteers Charity and Linda for hanging the records and Judy, Wes and Elaine for the installation of main 1950's exhibit area.

Some of the items are from the museum permanent collection, while others are on loan from community members. We are now open to the public for our summer hours: Wednesday to Sunday from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. If you can't make those times you can contact one of our board members who will be happy to open up the museum and guide you through.

Of Course It Will Rain

One of the continual problems with outside summer activities for museums is obviously the weather. Always unpredictable no matter what the weatherperson says. Is 40% really 100%. It doesn't help checking the sky because it is continually changing. One year we had so much rain that our museum grounds were saturated all summer. We were fortunate the museum didn't flood, and that is really because of the vigilance of a group of our volunteers. Last year our Strawberry Social was celebrated July 4, the same date as the town celebration for it's 110^th anniversary. It literally rained on our parade, then later poured. Suddenly at 2:00 pm it cleared and was beautiful for our event, however it was really humid.

 

Fast forward to 2016, the morning of June 25, there were black clouds and threatening thunderstorms. We moved our event to the Legion. It was rather crowded for the band Blue Country with about 7 members and our guests, but somehow we pulled it off. We were lucky the Legion wasn't already booked, but it did eat into our fundraising money. 

 So what is the lesson learned? The date doesn't matter. Our museum proper does not have a large enough space to hold the event. Then we realized that our storage area, the old curling rink attached to the museum, that we use for vehicles almost totally empties out in the summer and with some rearranging and cleaning it could become our alternate space. Oh, yes we have no water back there. The sump pump doesn't count. The floor is dirt not mud or wood, but I am sure we will eventually get everything worked out.

A Soldier's Life

I found the following article in the Cupar Herald dated 24 August 1916.  No source is given.  It gives a different perspective and perhaps a sense of humour.  You may judge for yourself.

1950's push cart

The museum would like to thank Dennis Demyen

for the donation of a 1950's push cart

from the estate of his wife Barb.

The push cart was lovingly used

 through her childhood years

and will become an important feature 

of our summer display.

Qu'Appelle Valley Network May Meeting

Rebecca from White City and Pat from Dysart get a chance after lunch for some personal conversation.

I realize a lot of people don't like meetings but not only is it a time to find out what other small museums are planning and what are there challenges, but how we can all share and help.

This was our first network meeting in Cupar.
Next meeting will be in Dysart scheduled for
October 15.


If any of you feel like day trips this summer and fall, here is the schedule of events for our group.

Qu'Appelle Valley Museums

Schedule of Events 2016

May 28 Indian Head Bell Barn: Lobster Dinner

May 29 Abernethy: Open House

June 25 Cupar: Strawberry Social: 2-4pm

featuring Blue Country band from Fort Qu'Appelle

June 26 Indian Head Bell Barn: Horse Fair

July 14 Dysart: High Tea: 1-3pm

July 15 Indian Head Bell Barn: Pizza Night

July 16 Kronau:Simple Fun Family Festival

featuring “Up Side of Maybe” band from London Ontario

July 22 Abernethy: Abernethy Fair & Open House

July 23 Glenavon: Fair Day & Open House

July 25-29 Kronau: Making Memories Kids Summer Camp – Session 1

August 13 Dysart: Museum Day: 1-4pm

August 13 Indian Head Bell Barn: Barn Dance

August 14 Indian Head: Open House at 1 pm.

August 15-19 Kronau: Making Memories Kids Summer Camp – Session 2

September 17 Indian Head Bell Barn: Barn Dance

September 24 Grenfell: Fall Fair & museum quilt raffle draw

September 30-October 2 Abernethy: Culture Days

October 1 Indian Head Bell Barn: Octoberfest

October 1 Cupar: Harvest Lunch & Culture Days 11am to 2pm

October 2 Kronau: Culture Days – Celebrating Ukrainian Culture &

anniversary of the first wave of Ukrainian immigrants to

this province

October 15 Kronau: Annual Fall Fundraiser at U of R

Featuring Chester McBain “The Entertainer” Magician

December 3 Kronau: Santa Store – Children's secret Christmas shopping

day at the museum

December 11 Kronau: Christmas Program and Carol Sing-a-Long.

Special Exhibits:

Cupar: The 1950's featuring toys

Dysart: Music Through the Years

Kronau: “Marching on to War” impact of wars on Saskatchewan families

Old School Communication

Let me begin by saying I am a baby boomer and you can choose to judge my attitude and technical abilities by that. I like to start the day with a cup of coffee watching the news. Yes I realize it is highly filtered, but that is not what bothers me. It is the 24 hour news channels that spend more time on ads then news. By the time the geriatric ads for reverse mortgages, “help I've fallen and can't get up”, step in baths and circulation boosters are over I really am not sure what important news item I wanted to see. Those ads obviously target a specific audience. Anyhow I have turned to my ipad with it's ad blocker. What a joy. I watch and read as many news channels as I want when I want. They are still filtered and I am aware I am not being told everything but can we trust all the variations of “social media” as being more truthful. Note to self, take everything with a grain of salt. The other day I read an article on going “old school”. I think I am beginning to hate that phrase. It was about young tech savvy people going back to flip phones from smart phones. Interesting. It kind of made me happy as we chase the illusive idea of keeping up with technology. As I wander through our museum looking at “old school” communication technology I smile to myself. On a wall hangs a wooden phone, it used a party line and everyone on the line had their own ring. Of course some people had to listen in. My mom and grandmother had a code they used. Once it was “the princess has arrived” Well the gossip that went out that the princess from England had arrived. It was actually the birth of my aunt. Did you know on facebook you can read other peoples posts even if you are not a friend. Try privacy settings.

Does anyone remember the rotary phone? My favourite. I loved turning that wheel and listening to the sound. I was easily amused as a child. Then came the mobile phone, barely. It was large and cumbersome. Now we carry our life in our pocket, our “smart phone”. Do you misplace things? Do you have a passcode? Did you download the app that helps you find your “smart phone”? Do you understand what I am saying? 

Well here is the moral to my ramblings, I have chosen to be selective in the technology I use and keep up with it based on my needs and not pressure from my peers or much younger generations. Having said that one should never stop learning and  always be curious.

A few words of warning about today's technology, think before you hit “delete”, don't automatically hit “yes” because it's there, free isn't always free. What will happen when you hit update just because it's there? Think first because it isn't always good.

Moving Exhibits

Spring, a time of renewal and time to rethink museum displays. Our wildlife / taxidermy exhibit has been in the main building for years. The wood is lighter in behind, so I suspect it could be 20 years. It has now been moved to the hallway adjoining the other major displays. I must say it really looks good there. 

Our new mannequins have arrived. Our permanent war exhibit will house some of them. Now the problem is fitting the new ones in, which seem to be slightly taller than the old ones.

The summer exhibit featuring the 1950s will be positioned where the wildlife exhibit originally was.

Cleaning and dusting exhibits seems to always fall to our female members and what a fresh smell everything had when they finished. So over coffee several of our female board members poured over 1950s Eaton's catalogues doing preliminary research. Although we do have some 1950s artifacts others will be coming in just for the summer.

People will be pleasantly surprised come the Strawberry Social on June 25^th.

Saskatchewan Oil Industry

I found this article in the Cupar Herald dated May 11, 1939.  It made me think about how things change and cycle round.

CPR platform wagon

Spring is near and one of our major projects a CPR platform wagon has been finished.

Thanks to the many hours of dedication by volunteer Jim Adam.  The wagon was in very poor shape, especially the railings and it did take some time to research it to get the look just right.

The next step will be
to create a permanent
space to house it
along with CPR
artifacts we have been
accumulating.

Cupar Boys WWI 1916

Originally it was thought that WWI would last only a few months. Although a number of the boys from Cupar left for the war in 1914, a great number enlisted in 1916. Below is a photo of the Cupar boys who were in the 195^th Overseas Battalion City of Regina at Camp Hughes in 1916. Also a list of their names.

One of the things we too often don't think about is what effect the removal of these young men had on the small farming communities and the ability of farmers to both seed and harvest their crops. Below are 2 articles, a general one on the need for soldiers to assist in seeding taken from the Cupar Herald dated 6 April 1916, and the other from the Cupar Herald dated 24 August 1916 refers to the brief return of many of the Cupar boys to assist with the harvest.

                                                                         6 April 1916

                                                                 24 August 1916

In a Box or In the Trash

Winter seems to be passing too quickly and my winter to do list doesn't seem to be happening. Well at least not the official one. I wanted to go though and photograph items from the 1939 Cupar Herald. I meant to put the photos from our summer exhibit in an album. I haven't opened and updated the museum's laptop. I haven't typed up the museum minutes from November. Must move that up my list once I get back from Saskatoon. I had wanted to put more posts on the museum blog. I have maintained it but have ignored checking out the twitter and facebook links my niece set up. Well that has only been 3 or 4 years. I shouldn't even mention the slides I brought back from Vancouver, I think it was 12 years ago. They are safely in several boxes hidden under a bed gathering dust. It breaks my heart to think about culling them down and throwing them in the garbage. The list goes on.

And then the big distraction happened. I got an ipad. My husband downloaded every free app he could find just in case I could use them so I have been putting them in folders and deleting the ones that are basically ads. I like to read the news in the morning and unfortunately on TV there are so many ads I can't remember what I was watching. So I love the ipad for that. Didn't mention the solitaire games that are eating into my productive time.

Email. I have 2 of them but have ignored one for 3 or 4 years. Mistake. So I confess the gmail one has been ignored. Who knew my mail was under the category “more.” all mail not in box. I was delighted to see my gmail account was on my ipad. ALL 895 OF THEM. In the box in the trash. I apologize to anyone who was trying to reach me. I'll get around to it next year. I kept 21 of the 895, and am pleased to see people and institutions following and retweeting. Thank you. But why on my laptop do I have 100 messages and on my ipad only 21. Never mind I'll get around to it next year.

Oh yes it's almost time to start thinking about my spring to do list.

I wonder what is the difference between distraction and procrastination. At least I know how to prioritize, right?

Cupar Centennial Pool

The Cupar Lions Club began in Cupar in 1964.  Unfortunately records of their activities between 1964-2005 were lost to flooding. They have throughout the past 50 years been critical to fund raising and assisting the community. The first major project was the Cupar Centennial Pool. Recently a past Lion's member, George Stuart, found in his personal papers a financial statement for the pool committee between 1965-67, and sent it to our museum. 

Another member, Jack Mitchell, found a few black and white photos that he shared with us. Unfortunately the people are not identified.

Krammer    Construction  

Lion's Fundraising Auction for 
Swimming Pool

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

 

Hopefully other Lion's members will find the odd document or photo from their private collection of Lion's activities that they can share, or better yet write up a history for us before their history and contributions to this community are totally lost.