A historic school room scene inside the Vermilion County Museum in Danville . Jennifer Bailey photo
The last service in the church was on Dec . 29 , 2019 .
Richter said they are still working on getting that window preserved .
Those types of donations are rare , she added .
The podium that the museum uses is the lectern out of the old Hope Church and has a plaque on it .
The museum staff tries to use as many items as they can and put the items into exhibits , too .
When the Commercial-News remodeled in the past , that ’ s how the museum ended up with the door of the advertising office that ’ s downstairs in the street scene .
“ We find unique spaces especially when they come out of businesses ,” Richter said about incorporating items into the museum building itself .
Two sconces , which were gas originally , downstairs in the museum are out of the old Wolford Cannon Hoecker Insurance building downtown . The light in the vestibule also is from another old building .
Time capsules also have been part of the museum ’ s collections such as from schools .
Recent donations have included : a DHS collection of older Maroon and White newspaper copies from the 1950s and 1960s . Museum staff sorted and categorized them by years . Now the newspapers are waiting in archival storage containers . Museum staff will scan them with a new scanner which is OCR which means they will be able to digitally look up names in the newspapers .
The museum has limited staff , also using volunteer assistance .
“ That has been really cool to get ,” Richter said of the newspapers .
The museum also has received programs from funerals from individuals and also other items from the Williams
Street Church of God .
The museum also always gets lots of pictures .
“ We love those ,” Richter said , adding that pictures are super valuable .
The biggest let-down in receiving photographs is not having names on them .
Someone else brought in a whole bunch of documents from the Chuckles candy factory . The museum has a Chuckles collection and that augmented that .
A couple years ago they got a really good collection of letters from a family . Part of the family lived in Muncie , and others lived north of town . Then they moved into town , and one woman ’ s husband went to Kentucky for medical school .
“ So , it ’ s like the letters back and forth ,” Richter said , adding that the letters talk about the weather and corn crop . They set a scene .
SPRING 2023 | ILLIANA MAGAZINE
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