It's YOUR Heritage, Too!

As darn near everyone in the world of not-for-profit enterprises [Fort Walla Walla Museum is a 501 (c) 3] will tell you, playing 'give-away' is mighty hard to do. We have a duty to be of public service and, out here on Myra Road in the beautiful Walla Walla Valley, we take that seriously.

Everyone should be able to connect with their heritage and for us that means folks who've lived here 'forever' (our Indian friends), those whose forebearers took up residence in the Frenchtown area during the 1820s (retirees from Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Walla Walla and their Indian and Metis families), scions of the earliest pioneer families, and those who arrived yesterday on their own migratory passages. If you live here, the heritage belongs to you.

Cost should not be the determinant in making the connection. We offer free family passes to a wide variety of social service agencies including BMAC, Children's Home Society, Lillian Rice Center, Christian Aid Society, YWCA, and others. We also partner with area schools to provide free admission for families whose economic challenges may preclude a Museum visit. Beyond that, we've offered our most recent book, Soldiers, Pioneers and Indian People, to schools and libraries throughout the region without cost to them.

We also contribute to some worthy causes. We get asked periodically to assist various entities' fundraisers. When appropriate, we're happy to comply. We had the opportunity to meet the winners of a "Walla Walla Get-Away" yesterday when they brought their free passes to the Museum. The passes were part of a package that included lodging, dinner, and a pair of winery tastings. As they are still traveling (and fairly far from home), I'll forego providing their point of origin, lest the criminal element of their home turf find those empty homes an easy mark.

They are having a wonderful time, especially enjoying the warm weather currently underway. It feels good to invite people to our hometown and see them enjoy it so well. Tourism is a key component of the local economy and the Museum's visitors, according to a variety of statistics, contribute about $2.5 million annually. That's just another way we work to 'preserve and share the heritage of the Walla Walla region.'

Building progress: After being away for a few days, I can see progress has been made. The main entries (front and back) have been boarded up, primarily to cut the dust for the mudders completing drywall work. The wood aspect of the log-look entry is also complete. Yesterday I noticed a workman installing frames around the six bathroom windows ... the windows will supply welcome light to both the men's & women's restrooms. Note: we heard our female advisors loud and clear~ their are four stalls in the womens, as opposed to just two in the men's. Perhaps equality means an equal time waiting for an unoccupied space.

Today's photos include the visiting gropup as they mug for the camera in our Ewe Guessed It: Woolen Goods from the Walla Walla Region special exhibit on display through September 7 and the blockhouse entry. The young lady is a French girl I met at the Farmer's Mrket last Saturday. She enjoyed playing with our 'demo' Jacobs Ladder toy that she's holding, as well as the cup 'n ball game we keep on hand for kids just like her. She and her family were nice folks, visiting their American family ... made me wish I knew more French beyond 'bon jour!'

Building a Better Museum

There's a wonderful line in the movie Dances With Wolves, wherein
'Timmons,' the decidedly foul muleskinner, comes across the remains of a woman apparently killed by a war party. All we see is part of a skeleton and the feathers of an arrow. Timmons remarks, "I bet somebody back east is saying, 'Now why don't she write?!'" If you're wondering where I haven't written all this week, well, I was too busy for words ... literally!

Progress on the new Entrance building is apparent. As we are trying to go as 'green' as possible with the construction, you may notice that the new siding is Hardiplank ... fire resistant as well as great insulating value. As you can see in the photos, we are going with a fairly narrow style of siding, in keeping with that used 'back in the day.'

You can also see the beginnings of tarpaper on the roof ... that means there is a layer of strand board, a layer of insulating material, more strand board, the tarpaper, and eventually the shingles. Ain't nothin' gettin' through that roof ... nor will heat escape in winter. Should keep things from heating up too much in summer, as well.

No good photo of it, but the parking lot is rolled smooth as glass and ready for paving ... that will be an interesting improvement, parking right by the entrance! I made up for that lack by including the guy with the best hard hat. Who knew there were design elements in the world of helmet decorations?

The Museum will be open this weekend, though I'll be at the Farmer's Market on Saturday and James, our Director, (with volunteers Rod & Lois) will be at 4th of July in the Park (Pioneer Park) that same day. Don will be on the grounds making sure all runs smoothly this weekend, including Sunday's great Living History program featuring Shady Lawn Antiques proprietors Dave & Jill Emigh as pioneeer brewmasters John & Catherine Stahl.

Stop by and say hello!

All Over the World!

Saturday was Farmer's Market Day and for those in the know, it was a perfect day to either be a Walla Wallan or to be visiting here. The best the community has to offer was on display and for little to no expense.

The Balloon Stampede offered up more than a dozen hot air balloons into a clear blue sky. Watching costs nothing! If you were up early enough to take that in, then a trip downtown to the Farmer's Market was also in order. There is no expense to that outing, either, unless you choose to buy early season vegetable like asparagus and 'salad' onions, or feed yourself on omelets, bbq, Italian fare, bakery, and more, or feed your soul on the music offered up (for free!) at the corner of Main & 4th (catty corner from the historic Dacres Hotel, the site of the Stine Hotel, once-largest brick hotel in all the region outside San Francisco).

It was a fabulous sunny day at the Market and people turned out in droves to enjoy the weather, each other, and the friendly ambience that has developed there. It's my job to pass out '$1 Off for All Adults in Party' coupons, so that as many people as want to can enjoy Fort Walla Walla Museum. By 1:00 pm when the Market generally begins shutting down, there were still 100s of people in the area. In all, I distributed 261 passes ... by my reckoning, that involves meeting close to 800 people. My pal Don, our Operations Manager at the Museum told me Sunday that we'd received quite a few passes back already, as well as similar coupons passed out by our volunteers at the Balloon Stampede. Cool! While we need to turn a dime to pay for all that the Museum offers, it should never be the cost that keeps people from a visit. I'm pleased we can make it so easy.

To that end, we give out quite a few free passes during the year, too. We partner with the schools to make sure that kids from economically challenged families get a view of their heritage. We also contribute free passes to a cross section of the community's social agencies like YWCA, Christian Aid Society, Children's Home Society, and more.

Underlying all this is the belief that people who are connected to the community's heritage make better citizens ... imagine voting without knowing the roots of this or any community: the past is our only roadmap to the future. When we include the community's children, we're talking about tomorrow's leaders--we'd like them to be fully versed in what makes the town tick, right? And for the many kids who arrived only recently with their families, this is their heritage, too. When you live here, you get to stake a claim in the past, because what we are today is what has been building for generations.

BTW, I met a couple from the UK, as they called it, home being "north of London a bit." I also noted in our guest register book that we'd received visitors at the Museum from 17 states and two countries in the first week of May ... isn't that astounding? People come from all over the world just to see what we keep in our backyard!

On the construction front, the crew brought in a giant crane Friday and began moving roof trusses from outside the security fence to inside the growing structure. It's my guess that we'll see the trusses going up this week, another benchmark to be noted along the way to completion of our new Entrance. I missed getting a crane pic, but won't miss out on the roof going up!

Today's photos are from the Farmers' Market on Saturday. The boy pictured is attempting to make the 'Jacob's Ladder' toy work. The simple device is an engineering marvel. The toys we bring to such venues are truly 'kid magnets;' I like to tell them that these are the "Game Boys" of the 1880s. They offer great hand-eye coordination development, as well as 'small-motor skills' development. The second picture shows why we celebrate Mother's Day.

Takin' it to the Streets

It looks to be another glorious weekend in beautiful Walla Walla and what better time to begin the Farmer's Market season. Fort Walla Walla Museum will have a presence there every weekend from May 2 through October 31.

If you've looked around, this is most definitely an agricultural community, with deep roots in the theory and practice of farming. The first Euro-Americans who settled here ... Hudson's Bay Company retirees in the Frenchtown area near today's Whitman Mission National Historic Site ... brought the modern equivalent of farming with them. There is some evidence that local Indian people engaged in pre-agriculture activities, knowing which plants to harvest in which season, and it is also true that they were in contact via trade with North American Indian societies that actively engaged in a sowing/tending/harvesting cycle. When the pioneers began to arrive, things really got underway.

The first serious endeavors had to do with serving the miners of the gold fields of the Boise Basin and up on the Colville. It may not be as romantic as swirling a pan in a cold stream looking for 'color,' but it is far more effective at both paying the bills and amassing an inheritence for one's progeny. Prices for staples in the remote gold camps ranged between exorbitant and astronomical and a far-seeing farmer could plan on a crop to make himself a tidy profit.

A harsh winter along the way put a damper on prospects, especially animal husbandry, but farming recovered and soon prevailed. A look at the fine homes on Palouse, Catherine, and Boyer streets in Walla Walla tells a quiet tale of when 'wheat was king.'

Little has changed in the intervening years as a tour of the Palouse region will show. We still have our wheat and sweet onions, even if asparagus, peas, and orcharding have peaked and waned. Grapes get the bulk of our agricultural panache these days and that ties in to the upcoming barrel-sampling weekends, another celebration of agricultural production.

In any event the Farmer's Market has become a Walla Walla institution and a good place to snag one of the Museum's "$1 off all adults in group" coupons. Saving a little money hasn't gone out of style around here, either.

Today's photos show my pal Deeson from Zerba Farms and the lovely young lady is my charming wife Celia. In the meantime, check out the Famer's market web site ... and see y'all on Saturday! http://www.gowallawallafarmersmarket.com/

Another Museum outreach occurs this afternoon at 12:30 in Heritage Park where ArtWalla unveils its 'windows to the past' project. Collections Manager Laura will be speaking to the assembled. heritage Park is the alcove-like area along East Main Street just north of the old Sears building where the Sew 'n Vac Center is today. Ya gotta love a town that takes its heritage this seriously!

Salute to the Volunteers!

Tomorrow is our Annual Banquet and Volunteer Awards. Each year we invite all the members, volunteers, and the public to participate in our salute to the previous season's outstanding volunteers. These wonderful folks logged more than 8,700 hours of service to to Museum doing all sorts of things to make a vistor's experience memorable. We have tour docents, store clerks, Living History portrayers, office support, collections & exhibits helpers, gardeners, building & maintenance help, and a whole host of event participants. Let's not overlook our Board members, who all serve on their own time. In all, it represents more than $150,000 savings to payroll.

We also feature a guest speaker each year and they have been memorable~Darby Stapp, a Tri-Cities archaeologist; Roberta Conner, Director of Tamastslikt Cultural Istitute; and David Nicandri, Director of the Washington State Historical Society are just a few who've graced our meeting. This year we've invited the leader of a sovereign nation: Antone Minthorn, Chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Mr. Minthorn will be speaking about the challenges of putting our youth in contact with their heritage and possible joint efforts that the Museum and Tribes may pursue in that regard. We also have special awards for last year's outstanding first-year volunteer and a 'life-time achievment' award.

The food is outstanding, too. Carissa Bossini's Walla Walla Catering is serving up an Italian buffet. If you ever dined at Caravaggio's at the Airport, then you'll know the quality of Carissa's fare. We'll have a social time beginning at 5:30 pm tomorrow with dinner to follow at 6:00 pm. The event takes place in the Blue Mountain/Mill Creek Room at Walla Walla Regional Airport. Tickets are $20 per person and if you'd like to attend, please call today: 505.525.7703.

Serious progress to report today regarding Fort Walla Walla Museum's 'Services & Facilities Enhancement Project.' According to Jim, our groundsman, the construction gang began pouring the slab of our new Entrance Building at 6:00 am this morning. At 8:00 am they were halfway done.

Today's photos show the sign announcing our project that was posted Friday; ongoing concrete construction; last year's Morris Ganguet Outastanding (new) Volunteer of the Year award winner Sally Wood; and the three co-winners of the Gerwyn A. Jones (lifetime) Service Award, Joe & Helene Eaves and Myra Addlington.

Here's to the Children!

Tomorrow's the BIG Day, the opening of our 42nd season of service from our location here in beautiful Fort Walla Walla park. We already have something approaching 2,000 participants booked for the admission-free school tour program this spring. The program is open to public, private, and home schools and is generously sponsored by Pacific Power Foundation;Boise, Inc's Wallula Mill; The Blue Mountain Area Foundation; the J.L. Stubblefield Trust; and the Bonnie Braden Trust.

Most years we get kids from across Washington and Oregon, as well as from Idaho. As school budgets have been strapped the past couple years, we've seen a bit of a decline in numbers, but the progam still averages more than 5,000 participants each year. Not a bad way to put kids in touch with their heritage!

Many schools that arrive at the Museum also manage to book a tour at Whitman Mission for the other half of their day. I'm told that many schools also take their students to either the Yakama Nation Museum or to Tamastastlikt Cultural Institute, the museum of The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. When they're through touring, the kids end up with a pretty good base of regional historical knowledge.

We enjoy being a part of the region's educational efforts. Kids who know of their heritage are far more capable of helping to lead our communities into the future. To that end, the past is just about our only road map into the future and we ignore it to our peril. It doesn't matter if your family has lived here for umpteen generations or if you just finished unloading the moving van, this is the region's heritage and now it's yours. Knowing it helps us cope with daily existence as well as helping to make a brighter tomorrow for us all.

These days, we interact with regional school kids only once or twice in their K-12 years. We'd like to make that five or six times. Our plans for the future include hirring an Education Coordinator so that we can do more outreach in the schools and have more things for kids while they're at the Museum. History class is too often a 'death match' between kids and the guy at the front of the class (and he'd win if it weren't for graduation!) ... I think it's all about people and that should make it all the time interesting.

So here's to the kids! Bring 'em to the Museum this week during Spring Break ... it's one of the best things parents can do for their kids.

Enjoy the photos ... I like the one of Walla Walla's Edison School with the kids near their busses, all waving.

Reaching Out

We're doing a lot of outreach these days. Sometimes that happens here at Fort Walla Walla Museum with an off-season tour permitted for a group of folks from the Boise area last Friday who would not otherwise be able to conveniently see the Museum (the young woman above is 17-year old Sierra from the Boise 'VW Things' group). At other times, Museum staff and volunteers go into the community to make contact with groups seeking entertanment through our Living History Company. Barbara portrayed Walla Walla's first professional school marm Sarah Miner at the VA yesterday (That's her, seated at the Museum's Union Schoolhouse). Today, we host our annual volunteer meeting on the grounds (the other pic is from such a meeting a few years ago)and this afternoon the Director and I will give a short presentation to the residents at Garrison Creek Lodge, our neighbor around the corner on The Dalles Military Road.

In the course of a year, we do a lot of this sort of thing. Museum staff and volunteers represent the Museum in a wide variety of ways and places. Don sits with the City's Parks and Rec Advisory Board and serves as a Chamber of Commerce Ambassador, Carolyn is the Secretary/Treasurer for the Columbia County Cemetery Association (there's quite a few historic cemeteries in that county), and I sit on the Union-Bulletin's Community Board. James, the Director, is on quite a few Boards, including Tourism Walla Walla, the School Boundary Task Force, the Historical Advisory Board, and a bunch of others.

We like to give back to the community that supports us so strongly and it helps when we can answer invidiuals' questions about what's going on at the Museum ... not everything gets into the news. If you have a question, stop in to see us or call 509.525.7703. You can email us at info@fortwallawallamuseum.org, too.