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NEWSLETTER
Vol. V, No. 4
Winter 2013-14
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300 Coloma Ave. Phone: (269) 468-3330 P.O. Box 207 Fax: (269) 468-4083 Coloma, MI 49038 www.NorthBerrienHistory.org info@NorthBerrienHistory.org Connect with NBHS Online!
Facebook: Facebook.com/NorthBerrienHistory North Berrien History Blog: NorthBerrienHistory.Blogspot.com Twitter: Twitter.com/NBerrienHistory
Staff
Director / Curator Director of Programs Office Manager
A glimpse of our 2013 Photo Contest Exhibit. Thanks to the F. S. Upton Foundation and Cindy Young at Brick School Gallery for providing our new beautiful frames!
The mission of the North Berrien Historical Society is to preserve and distribute information regarding the history of North Berrien County. We wish to promote, encourage learning, and disseminate knowledge of the areas cultural and architectural legacy.
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All events are at the North Berrien Historical Museum unless otherwise noted.
Holiday Lights & Delights Fundraiser. Treat someone and support the museum at this delightful Thurs., Dec. 5, evening event! Enjoy seasonal drinks, appetizers, and 5:30-7pm desserts, and live music, while enjoying our dcor brilliantly lit in the evening dark. $5 Admission. Holiday Open House. Save the dates for our very Friday-Sunday, popular annual holiday festivities at the museum, with December 6-8 beautiful trees, gingerbread house making and other crafts, live music, Santa & Mrs. Claus, a Cookie Walk, and more. Free Admission. See the flyer for full details! Friday, January 17, 1-3pm Winter Drop-in Hands-on History. While schools are on break for Martin Luther King Day, the museum will offer a drop-in craft and activity time at the museum. Free. Barn Exhibit Development Meeting. In April 2014 we will open the permanent exhibit Moving from Forest to Fruit Belt in the museums Nichols-Beverly Barn. At this meeting we will review the plan and organize volunteer teams for producing the new exhibit. All are welcome, especially locals with agricultural history knowledge, local farm materials, and handyman skills. Please RSVP to the museum at 468-3330. See the Curators Corner on page 5 for more details.
January 31 February 9
2014 Coastline Childrens Film Festival. Fantastic films for all ages will screen at ten locations, including the Loma Theatre, with special programs at the North Berrien Historical Museum. Please see Page 5 for more details.
Victorian Valentines Party. Bring your family to the museum for festive crafts, games, and refreshments. View our collection of historic valentines and find inspiration to create your own valentines to take home. Suggested Donation $3/person. Film Screening & Discussion: Tale of Two Cities. This PBS mini-documentary explores the histories of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, especially their transformations in the last century and relationship to one another. The film was produced by WKAR at Michigan State University for the series Michigan At Risk. This program will include the film screening (30 min.), popcorn and punch, and a group discussion about the relationship between the Twin Cities and all of Berrien County. Book Discussion: A Stronger Kinship: One Towns Extraordinary Story of Hope & Faith. Held at Coloma Public Library in partnership with the Book Club. In A Stronger Kinship, historian Anna-Lisa Cox documents the history of Covert, Michigan, a town with integrated schools, churches, and families while the Jim Crow era ruled elsewhere. Their stories will appear in the new Smithsonian Museum of African-American History opening in 2015.
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member Kathleen Walter) and began at Community Hospital on October 1, 1963. It was not Kathys first time at the hospital. On Mothers Day 1950, her family was in an auto accident. She remembers riding in the ambulance, then a converted hearse. Community Hospital had just gotten its start in 1948-49, in a fifty-year-old former residence. No elevator had yet been installed, so patients (including her mother) had to be carried on a gurney by hand up the stairs. Staying overnight in a downstairs private room, Kathy recalls an old fireplace in the space. With additions to the hospital in the late 1950s and early 60s, the old home later became the administrative area, while most medical care took place in the new additions. Kathy says that there has always been a strong culture of patient first at Community Hospital. She recalls one memorable incident caring for about 20 kids who came in with severe food poisoning from the same church picnic. Another time, a patient slipped out the back door in his hospital gown to go have a beer down the street, and had to be brought back. Being in a small community, notes Kathy, meant that the hospital staff often saw neighbors, friends, and family. Her own grandmother was a patient after a stroke, before passing away at the hospital. Over fifty years, Mrs. Walter has kept up with tremendous changes in the medical field. Before disposable syringes, she and other nurses had to both sterilize and sharpen the needles for glass syringes. Before disposable rubber gloves, she was trained to wash, dry, inspect, and sterilize her gloves by hand. In nursing school, Kathy learned the old-fashioned
This is what Community Hospital looked like when Kathy Walter started as a Nurse there in 1963. The house was built in 1894 for one of the original owners of the Watervliet Paper Mill. It was later the Hotel Riverview and, starting in 1940, Mrs. Mary Cannells nursing home. North Berrien Historical Society 9998.09.24.
A meeting of the Community Hospital Board of Directors, which met for the first time in January 1949. North Berrien Historical Society 9998.10.90.
way of caring for heart attack patients, manually checking and administering medicine. But soon cardiac units were introduced, using technology to more precisely monitor the condition of the patients heart. Kathy has transitioned to the new computer-based care system EPIC and has taken continuing education credits to stay up-to-speed on medical advances, as required to maintain a nursing license. When the new hospital was constructed off Red Arrow Highway in 1976, the hospital was truly ensured a future. They went from one to three Operating Rooms, among other updates. Kathy most remembers that the move gave the staff much needed space and things at your fingertips. She is pleased to see the major new investments that Lakeland HealthCare has brought in since acquiring Community Hospital in 2010. Kathy notes that Community Hospital is designated a rural healthcare facility. Insurance companies will actually pay more to encourage people to seek and receive care in a rural facility. Over the years, we were considered the band aid station out here... Kathy said, but what we did was very good, even if it may not have been everything. She recalls that one evening, a man had been stabbed and his heart was pierced by the knife tip. The staff worked feverishly to repair the heart while a supply of blood was pumped in, and he survived. We like to think we can do heart surgery if we really have to, we can save lives, said Kathy. By Tracy Gierada
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Curators Corner
By Tracy Gierada Moving from Forest to Fruit Belt is the title and theme for the exhibit we are now planning in the Nichols-Beverly Barn. The changes will make our lumbering and agricultural artifacts more relatable to visitors and more engaging for the elementary students who visit the museum each year. Opening in April 2014, we aim to produce a unique historical attraction that will draw new visitors from throughout our region. All are welcome to an Exhibit Development Meeting on Tuesday, January 21 at 7pm. (Please RSVP to the museum at 468-3330). At this meeting an overview will be presented, final edits planned, and volunteer project teams will be organized for producing the new exhibit. We especially seek the input of locals with agricultural history knowledge, family farm materials, and handyman or artistic skills.
Our spray rig was refurbished recently by Lucas Hettig and Marc Hettig. They created a hand-turned crank to attach to the power takeoff, which moves the pistons in the rig when turned. The spray rig was used in the orchards of Johnson Farms in Coloma and will be featured in our renovated exhibit in the NicholsBeverly Barn. Many thanks to Marc and Lucas!
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Above: The Deep Fried Pickle Project gave us a highly entertaining program at our Annual Meeting, featuring some beloved roots music songs from the 1920s-30s. Left, Top to Bottom: 1. Watervliet native and World War Two veteran Willis Bouma presents his overseas stories at the museum in uniform. 2. Programs Director Pauline Wendzel presents our tour of St. Pauls Cemetery on Sept. 5. The tour also visited New Hope and Byers/ Bainbridge cemeteries. 3. NBHS Member Will Nichols is interviewed by Youth Intern member Billy Coleman III. Their interview covered Mr. Nichols career in local agriculture, to help in preparations for our new exhibit project. 4. Fifth grade students from Countryside Academy pose during their tour of the Smithsonian traveling exhibit Journey Stories here at the museum.
Page 7 was their exceptional guest singer, Alans wife, Becky Selvidge. Many old favorite tunes from days past were enjoyed at the gathering. The snow had melted and the rain held off for our free Halloween Cemetery Tours on Saturday, October 26. Dark skies and howling wind added nicely to the spooky element of our Coloma and Watervliet city cemetery tours, where we highlight important people from our towns as well as some interesting stories for Halloween. In spite of the cold and rainy weather the Coloma Cemetery tours in late October for the 4th grade classes at Coloma Elementary School were a success. This is now an annual tour and the students seem to really respond well to it. They learn about many prominent citizens from Coloma as well as the towns unique history. In other education news, with the start of school we were excited to have a few classes tour the Journey Stories traveling exhibit. For the first time Countryside Academy 5th graders visited the museum. They were able to tour the exhibit, partake in a scavenger hunt, and receive a lesson from Anna Pegler-Gordon, a visiting professor from MSU. Watervliet North Elementary School 3rd grade was also able to come in for a tour of Journey Stories and a scavenger hunt. On October 29 our Potawatomi trunk was used by a group of home school students visiting the museum. They learned about local Native Americans and made their own craft project to take home. North Berrien Historical Society Membership Form
Benefits include: Quarterly Newsletter, Advance invite to special events, and Members-only opportunities Name Address City, State, ZIP Phone E-mail
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Alma Arent James Keech David Kliss Rita Lynch Lori Carlson Janet Blair Penny Hanks Marge DuVernay Darlene Getz Joyce Kolenko Charles Miller Janice Carter Reid Lorna van Komen Bill & Martha Beverly Richard Beam Emma Morlock George & Maggie Richter Marty & Joanne Strebeck Alton & Millie Wendzel Charles & Mary Adams James & Katherine Mann Robin & Ed Mileski Kathleen Walter Norma & Doug Somers Richard & Adeline Grau
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Jean Fannin William Hansen Edwin Taylor Jolyn Taylor Eileen Healy Pauline Morris Jerry Puckett Rita Lynch Marge DuVernay Robin Mileski Katherine Mann Penny Hanks Rhonya LeVeque Jean Chandler Lori Carlson Robert Jackson Claudia Jackson Clare Horneij Pat Valenti Mary Adams Carole Sternaman Joyce Kolenko Milt Stibal Linda Stibal Jean Christensen John Nelson Barbara Nelson Ted & Nora Kamberos
Thank you to our Holiday Lights & Delights Fundraiser Sponsors: Hardings The wHAIRhouse Salon D.W. Hammond Chocolates Back on the Rack Mill Creek Charlies Handmade Treasures Chemical Bank Bobs Barn Bakery & Market
Featuring Christmas Trees by SW MI Scroll Saw Club Cottage of the Four Seasons Randys BP Edgewater Bank Chemical Bank Honor Credit Union Coloma Lioness Club Mill Creek Charlies Back on the Rack Handmade Treasures Keith & Marsha Hammond North Berrien Creative Artists Guild Faith Lutheran Church Tall Timbers Tree Farm The wHAIRhouse Salon Lakeland Community Hospital Auxiliary The Friendly Tavern Coloma Class of 2014 Watervliet District Library Greg Orchards/ Coloma Frozen Foods Maggs Rags Rite Aid Ellinee Bait & Tackle
December 5
Holiday Lights & Delights Fundraiser
Enjoy an evening with local holiday treats and music by Becky & Les Burford. $5 Admission
December 6 - 8
Holiday Open House & Favorite Tree Contest
Free Admission, Santas Workshop crafts, Gingerbread House decorating, Live music, Santa & Mrs. Claus, Cookie Walk
www.NorthBerrienHistory.org