Another ongoing project is the move of the museum's numerous textiles from the museum's basement to the basement at the New Groningen Schoolhouse.  The reason for this move is due to the shortage of storage space and high humidity levels of the museum’s basement causing a concern for the health of the material.

The space at the Schoolhouse was virtually unused, in better condition due to the recent remodel and provided a better environment for the textiles. Thank you to the board for making the call for the move.

Over the past year and a half to two years, well over 700 artifacts have been moved over to the new storage space.

• Military, police and fireman uniforms
• Wedding dresses
• Shoes
• Quilts and blankets
• Mourning scarves
• Coats (fur and otherwise)
• Rugs
• Suits and dresses
• Purses 
• And much more    

Next stage is to organize, clean if needed, document and store the artifacts carefully so that future generations can utilize these items for future study.  

Helping to get the ball rolling is Wendy Combs, curator, and her many assistants. 

• Suzy and Thomas Frederick have helped with setting up and hanging clothes poles and providing shelving units.  
• Robert Boehm, maintenance and builder extraordinaire, has helped to move clothing, hang clothes poles, adjust and fix humidifiers (along with John Norder) and will be building more shelves.
• Susan and John Norder have taken on the task of moving and organizing all of the military items by conflict, person and catalog number.
• Wendy Combs and her brother Mike made several trips moving the hanging and boxed textiles.
• Wilma Veldheer, with her many years of experience with the museum and her great knowledge, has been helping to organize and catalog the hanging materials
• Arlene Steenwyk, an all-around volunteer and board member, has also joined the fun.
• Wendy will be photographing and cataloging each item into the museum’s database.

You can also help.  We will be needing more shelving, padded hangers, archival tissue and boxes for storage purposes and those willing to gently clean the artifacts. 

If you can help, please contact the museum and let us know.  Thank you.

Written by Wendy Combs, curator - September 2018

Project manager, Robert Boehm, worked with John Norder and Denny Smith (Robert's neighbor) to finish the shelves. Thank you all for your hard work!