PREECEVILLE — The leaves are falling, and evenings are getting cooler. Fall is in the air. Students return to school, and the Preeceville and District Heritage Museum has closed for the winter. It was a successful season with a large number of visitors. The year began in May with an open house, serving coffee and homemade donuts.
“Kaiden Bourassa was the museum’s summer student and did a great job of keeping the museum open and greeting our guests. During ‘Old Home Week,’ we had our annual chili and clay oven bread day. It was a beautiful day to enjoy homemade food, visiting, and great music provided by Jerry. This year was the 20th anniversary of the museum. We are just a youngster in terms of museums. The celebration was low-key but cake was tasty. The closure in Sept. was a coffee party with homemade pie. Pie is a hit with our guests. Our recent hamburger sale with the local market had a lot of people who continued to enjoy a burger cooked outside,” stated Agnes Murrin, chairperson.
“We hosted a large tour of the Acquired Brain Injury group and a Red Hatters Tea.
“The projects that got completed this year included repairing and painting all the steps and ramp, cleaning out the eavestroughs – we have a lot of trees around, adding some shelves inside, building a couple of flower boxes (to plant poppies in the spring), and purchasing a custom cover for the clay oven. Plans for the winter include having a booth at the fall market, laying a wreath at the Remembrance Day service, and having a tree at the annual Festival of Trees. Some of the artifacts that we acquired this year were: Preeceville School yearbooks, wooden wheelbarrow, tobacco tins, vintage hats, pocket watch, ledgers, pictures, articles, gunny sacks, etc.
“The small working board of the museum is always looking for new members. We currently have six on the board, which is not enough, so please consider joining this fun group. A couple of projects we are working on: Mushers Rendezvous was part of our community for 20 years — we are working on a binder to showcase this achievement. We have all the newspaper articles from the Preeceville Progress but would like any pictures and/or admission buttons to add to the binder. We are also trying to complete our collection of Preeceville School yearbooks. We are looking for yearbooks from the 1970s and 1980s.
“Our visitors often request to look at certain years, and these books are popular. On behalf of the museum board, we want to thank the community for their generous support by providing artifacts as well as attending our functions. Thank you,” concluded Murrin.
