New Website

The museum has a new website! Although blogs are nice, it's often hard to locate information on them. We wanted a more organized spot where we can let you know what's happening. 
We hope you like it. Check it out at the following address.

https://pocahontascounty.wixsite.com/museum

Museum Open

The museum will be open during the Laurens Summer Celebration.

Friday, July 7    4:30-7:30

Saturday, July 8   11:00-3:00

On Saturday, we will also offer children's activities in front of the museum.

Catch Up Time

  Laurens-Marathon Middle School Students at the Museum

It's been quite a while since our last post, but that doesn't mean that we haven't been busy.
From a talk at the library on pioneer farming and a museum visit from Horizon's Unlimited to reminiscence programs at the Laurens Care Center and Arlington Place in Pocahontas, the first part of 2017 has been pretty full. 

Spring time was devoted to school kids. We worked with Laurens-Marathon fifth graders on their Iowa history projects which included both a written report and a visual display. This year they went local with their topics. Museum volunteers helped with resources and research. 

Almost all Pocahontas County fifth graders attended school days at Wiegert Farmstead in early May. The museum provided a scavenger hunt activity in the farm house. 

We conducted a historic house tour for high school students at Pocahontas in an  architecture class. All of the middle school students at Laurens-Marathon took a short class on family history. They came to the museum to practice using primary sources from homestead papers and bibles to old photos and diaries. 

Enjoy the photos below!

                                                       Laurens Care Center

                                               Fifth Grade History Project

                                                 Fifth Grade History Project 

                                               At the Wiegert Farm House

                                             At the Wiegert Farm House

                                              Historic House Tour in Laurens

         Laurens-Marathon Middle School students looking for information in a family bible.

Thank you to the Pocahontas County Supervisors for their Support!

We will speak to  the Pocahontas County Supervisors soon to thank them for their support and to let them know what we accomplished in 2016. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, we put together these photos for our presentation.

Programs

The museum held 27 programs, group tours, and open houses in 2016. We worked with school classes, nursing homes, and community organizations.

county-wide School Days at Wiegert Farmstead

 hands-on tour
Horizon's Unlimited
Emmetsburg

 presentation on pioneer farming
Women, Land and Legacy Group
Pocahontas, Buena Vista and Calhoun County

 Pocahontas Area and Laurens-Marathon 
May term class


 

 Pocahontas Area and Laurens-Marathon 
May term class

 Pocahontas Area and Laurens-Marathon 
May term class

 ISU after-school program

 ongoing Laurens-Marathon fifth grade Iowa history

Laurens-Marathon American History class

Outreach Displays 

The museum set up new displays every three months at local libraries.

 Rolfe Public Library
 

 Pocahontas Public Library

Laurens Public Library

 We also displayed two trees at the Laurens Festival of Trees

fifth grade pioneer tree

museum tree
"Merry Marketing"

We provided a display for the schoolhouse at the Wiegert Fall Fest.

Building Maintenance

We put in new and retrofitted lights on the main floor.
Thanks to Laurens Municipal Power and Communications for installation! 

We installed safer handrails to the basement.

Organization and Display 
We had guest  displays at the museum.

The Laurens-Marathon American History class created a display as part of their study of WWI.

The Finders Keepers Club put together a display about 1950's housewives.


Some of 2016 New Acquisitions 

 breaking plow

umpire equipment

work horse items

 

A Box Full of Stories

We can always expect to hear great stories and learn a lot when we head to area nursing homes. We weren't disappointed last week, when we entered the Laurens Care Center. We had been there a few months ago with farm items. We had lots of fun and so we made a return visit, this time with a box or two filled with household items from the museum collection. 

We started off with a glass milk bottle. Right away we heard a story about competing dairies leaving gifts of milk on the doorsteps of new neighbors. We also learned about rural delivery of milk which was new information for us.  A meat grinder lay in the bottom of our box of goodies. Not being from the Midwest, I didn't know about using a meat grinder to make egg salad and cranberry relish. Hey, I thought it was a meat grinder! 

These programs are so easy and pleasant for us to do. All we need to do is pull out an item and listen and learn. We hope the residents enjoyed it as much as we did. We'll be returning soon for another visit. 

Postponed Once Again!

postponed due to icy conditions

rescheduled for Tuesday, January 31 at 7 PM

Program Postponed

From Scythes to Silos has been postponed until Tuesday, January 17 due to weather
conditions.