From the President
By: Betty Mayian
Members and Friends of the Edgewater Historical Society Museum, I will report on what has been happening at the museum in the past several months. So much has been going on that you will say “Are you kidding, where do they find the volunteers and the time to do all this!” Well, we love our volunteers so much that we instituted an event that will be happening every year in August. A picnic in honor of the hard working people who have helped us out so much this year. Sandee Remis and Elisabeth Szegho did a great job of planning and coordinating the event. It was a Victorian Garden Party. This year we had a large number of volunteers working on the garden so the event showcased all their work.
In September we participated in the LBRC yard sale, but watch for a possible new location next year. On the 3rd Sunday of September we presented the spectacular Home tour in Edgewater Glen. On September 26 we had Professor Ann Durkin Keating, who graciously took us briefly through Chicago’s History. Prof. Keating edited the massive “Encyclopedia of Chicago.”
October started out with a full weekend of EHS previewing the Bob and Katie Remer Collection of Maps. The next weekend we joined in the Andersonville Art Weekend by dressing up in vintage costumes and roaming Andersonville to encourage people to visit the museum. The maps were the museum’s art on display. The following Saturday, Bob Remer and friends gave a slide show presentation of how these and other maps came to be. And we purchased a video camera so that we now have the ability to keep these wonderful presentations for future viewing.
The last Saturday in October was a tribute to Clayton Moore, Edgewater resident, who played the Lone Ranger. The Those Were The Days Radio Players read his tribute and performed the first radio Lone Ranger episode, along with a comedy about “Baby Snooks and Daddy” during Halloween. Those same Radio Players will do a holiday program on December 2nd at 2 p.m., the day after our first annual Bake and Gift Sale. Maybe there will be more baked goods to buy on Saturday!
The EHS Museum is in need of volunteers with some experience in media relations and publicity to help develop a public relations program. We feel it is important to set up an organized, well run publicity machine that can adapt to change – thereby developing a regularly scheduled plan for sending our EHS event information. This would keep our membership informed and in addition would greatly assist in building membership. Please help us if you can by volunteering some of your time in this endeavor. Your expertise will be greatly appreciated in building EHS’s public relations program. You may contact me and we will set up a meeting with members of our fundraising, membership and publicity committees. Thank you in advance for giving this matter some thought and for volunteering. Please telephone me at 773-506-4849 or send me an email.
We are also looking for volunteers who will photograph buildings in the community and will help with recording some of our guest speakers. We have reinstituted our oral history project and we are looking for volunteers who are willing to interview people in our community. We are also looking for someone to get involved with setting up the sale of some of our promotional items at the museum and on our website. We want to make the wisest decisions about our computers and could use more members on our technology subcommittee. Our Collections committee meets regularly to prepare our items for computerization.
Besides volunteer help, we need money to help us set up the collections process. We have decided that the Lifetime Membership dues will go to those ends. In addition, all of the sales we make of our books, t-shirts, items with our logos, furniture and raffles, bake sale, and yard sales we participate in will be designated for the support of Collections.
Tom Murphy has taken on the Rental of our Museum Space to outside groups. Birthday parties, sales presentations, meetings and many more uses for this beautiful location has been stepped up because we now have a full and useful kitchen that can be used by the people who will have events at our museum. The rates are reasonable – Call Tom at the Museum for a rate for your next event. The prices were set several years ago and they are due for an increase, so call soon. The Admiral at the Lake held an event here and they were pleased with the facility.
Membership is our life’s blood; we urge you to join or renew your membership now. There is also the opportunity to add to your donation and receive your own copy of our historic “Edgewater: Through the Eyes of Experience” DVD documentary, professionally produced by local filmmaker, Bob Solomon (see the article on page 7). It would make a nice gift.