I wish the young artist who drew my picture had signed it!
Yesterday I finally managed to visit the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum to see their current exhibit, “The Heart of the Museum Part II: Seeing Local History Through Scrapbooks.” And about time, too! The exhibit has been up since January 5th and, though it runs through March 9th, I wanted to leave plenty of time to see it again. And again! As I knew I would, I loved it!
First and foremost, self-serving as it sounds, I loved seeing how my own scrapbooks were displayed! Not all of them, of course — I think there have been 80-some donated so far. And I loved the way “they” (read: Betsy Millard) selected those they thought exemplified the collection and how they chose to display them. My scrapbooks were in three different groupings and in three different areas. First was was a stack of “Long Beach School, Room 5” scrapbooks — one for each of the last five years I taught– displayed beneath a sign about me which begins: “Sydney Stevens, former school teacher, author and historian…”
Croquet Scrapbooks!
Next was a display of some of my “Croquet Scrapbooks” with a special “exhibit” of the pages from the 1987 book showing scenes from Nyel and my “surprise” wedding that year. So fun! And, finally, as part of an exhibit of church scrapbooks, a number of mine are sitting on what appears to be a church pew. “Since the pages are fully protected by Mylar,” Betsy told me, “we thought it would be fun for people to be able to look at these. Everyone loves the Oysterville Church!” Amen to that.
The most spectacular part of all the exhibits are the complete collection of Gordon Schoewe’s scrapbooks which he kept up from his college years (1944) until shortly before he died (2014). Fifty years of scrapbooks in Gordon’s inimitable style — complete with a drawing of Ambrose-the-Rabbit, Gordon’s alter-ego! There are also a few pages featuring one of his and Roy’s early ’80s Christmas Parties with Gordon’s cryptic word bubbles added to our photos. So bittersweet to revisit those memories now that most of the party-goers are celebrating in the Great Beyond.
Have a seat and take a look at one or two Oysterville Church scrapbooks!
And others — so many others! Joe Knowles’ scrapbook about his adventure into the Maine Woods in 1913 and schoolteacher Mrs. Osborne’s scrapbook with that infamous 1948 “all school” picture from Ocean Park School — and there I was again, in 7th grade!
And lest you think it was all about me — NOT! It’s about all of us — our wonderfully intertwined and complicated greater community — a look back of over 100 years! Be sure to check it out. You are bound to run across someone you know or a place you’ve been or an event you attended. Or, perhaps, you’ll be able to spend a few precious moments with a friend long gone. It’s a great exhibit!
“Self,” I said to myself… “It’s high time to get on with this downsizing project!” It’s a project Nyel and I began several years ago with an eye to leaving the house in understandable condition when it’s our time to shuffle off. “Understandable” translates to getting rid of all of our personal “stuff” — those keepsakes and photos and endless file folders of written material that will mean nothing to those who will be here next.
I began this morning with a heavy cardboard box labeled Dale’s Photos etc. ’98? “Piece of cake,” I thought to myself. “Those were the years when mom was at Golden Sands and later at the nursing home. I probably took most of those pictures myself. They’ll be easy to cull…”
Hard on the heels of that treasure, I ran across a postcard in my own tidy 22-year-old’s handwriting sent from Perugia, Italy on March 8, 1958. The picture on the front was of Michelangelo’s “David” and I reported that we (Charlie’s dad and I)) were still crazy about Italy and that “Quad (which was Charlie’s toddler- nickname) is fine.”
