Newsletter Spring 2009 - TRINIDAD MUSEUM SOCIETY

Newsletter
of the TRINIDAD MUSEUM SOCIETY
Spring 2009 Editors: Ned Simmons & Patti Fleschner 707 677-0716 or 677-3816

WHEN WILL TRINIDAD MUSEUM OPEN?
Board members are asked this every day. Our answer has to be "soon".

The disabled ramp, steps, and front planter box are underway. The interior of the 1899-1900 bungalow is beautifully finished and painted with wainscoting, the original ceilings and redwood and oak flooring, charming period lighting, and gorgeous doors. Electricity is on. Have you noticed the soft, subtle night lighting designed by Glenn Stockness of Freeman and Associates? Water has yet to be hooked up but this will happen shortly. The old museum is closed and fifteen pick-up loads of museum furnishings have been transferred to the new museum with more to come.

What are we waiting for? Only road access and parking, a complicated story. In a nutshell, the Transportation Enhancement Act grant obtained by City Engineer Winzler and Kelly and the City of Trinidad has been delayed due to California's reduced resources. (Park Bond money which was in place to complete Saunders Park also is frozen). Meantime, a less expensive road design is out to bid and the City together with State Proposition 1B money will allow the completion of Janis Court, off Patrick's Point Drive, this spring or early summer. It is hoped that the TEA grant, or possibly another source of government funding, will allow for all of the common area improvements later. City Manager Steve Albright and Contractor Charles Netzow have been working tirelessly to push forward to grand opening day, which will be the year's most anticipated event, and to which all of the community will be invited.

COOPERATION and COORDINATION
Humboldt North Coast Land Trust past president Gail Kenny continues to chair the Joint Committee Meetings with Trinidad Museum, Trinidad Library, Saunders Park, HNCLT and City representatives on a mostly monthly basis.

Most of the infrastructure concerns: electricity, telephone, cable, septic, water, road, pathways, parking, and common areas, are shared by the different projects. The Joint Committee meets to advance all of the details.

Charles Netzow and Scott Baker continue to represent the Museum, while Gail Kenny and Beverly Zeman speak for the Land Trust. Kathy Bhardwaj and Don Ratzlaff are City representatives. Roland Johnson and Don Blue are Library spokesmen.

City Manager Steve Albright often attends and his expertise with coordinating the variety of agencies involved in commencing parking, easement and road work has been invaluable.

ALLIE LINDGREN TO SPEAK at CNPS
Allie Lindgren will be guest speaker at the California Native Plant Society and Friends of the Dunes Education Day forum on May 1 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Manila Community Center.

She will give a presentation on Native American uses of native plants and food preservation and display Native American carvings. Allie is a Yurok Tribal member, a director of Trinidad Museum Society and a fifth generation member of the Tsurai Ancestral Society, descendants of the original inhabitants of Tsurai Village.

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BROWNIES at WORK

MARCH GOES OUT LIKE a LAMB? NO!
TRINIDAD BROWNIES CAME in LIKE LIONESSES
by Jill Mefford

Brownie Troop 70534, lead by Linda Campbell, briskly walked after school March 31 to the new museum grounds to help with planting at the Native Plant Garden.

Last summer the Troop donated and planted 200 tiny, bare root beach strawberries in the garden. Those little plants, in full bloom now, have beautifully carpeted a large area and soon the strawberries will be ripening, providing food for wildlife (and Brownies?).

 
The original idea was to help create a butterfly garden. Acentral feature of the garden designed by Nancy Rehg is a meadow of native clumping grasses and flowers. Blue lupine, yarrow, goldenrod, pearly-everlasting, fire weed, along with the grasses, will provide habitat and food for butterflies and more. Recently the museum garden committee had assembled about a hundred Pacific fountain grasses, reed grasses, and blue-eyed grass (actually a small, spreading iris) ready for planting. In short order, these energetic little girls, and one strong Boy Scout brother, carefully amended the soil, planted and watered everything, and were looking for more work. Next time, we'll sign them up for weeding!

Highlights of the visit were the frogs swimming in the pond, and the masses of frog eggs yet to hatch. A possible "mountain beaver" (Aplodontia) habitat was very intriguing. Best of all, the abundant Franciscan clay ("blue goo") made fine pots, bowls, and balls during breaks in the work.

Trinidad Museum Society and the garden committee Virginia Waters, Ron Johnson, and Jill Mefford, thank Brownie parents Nancy Sanders, Stacy Graves, and Greg Reiter for helping. But most of all, gratitude goes to Troop 70534 for their excitement about the Native Plant Garden, for caring about our wonderful community and for working in so many ways to make it even better.

VISIT TRINIDADMUSEUM.ORG
Graphic designer(ret), Trinidad Bay Bed and Breakfast owner, Trinidad Volunteer Fire Department member, City Councilman and Greater Trinidad Chamber of Commerce board member Mike Morgan had a little spare time. So he designed and executed Trinidad Museum's brand new web site, trinidadmuseum.org. It is in (the very first phase of) development, but even in its beginning stages, it is beautiful and easy to navigate.

TMS is so grateful for Mike's creativity and generosity in giving his time and expertise.

REST in PEACE FRIENDS
Long time Trinidad Museum benefactors Dr. Ray Davis, Ruth Greenburg, and Grant Ferguson have passed away recently. They have given time, encouragement, talent, and resources to make the old, and the new museum, possible.

Rev. Bob Talmadge, Leslee Moribito, and Wendy Ewald all have played a role in the museum's success as well, and their creativity, energy, and goodness are greatly missed.

The lives and the exemplary work of these Trinidad Museum members and supporters always will be held in the highest regard.


BOOK and PHOTOGRAPH NEWS
By Joan Berman and Rebekka Knierim

The Museum’s photograph collections will soon be more visible, both online and in an upcoming book. Historian Dione Armand is hard at work researching a new pictorial book on Trinidad to be published late in 2009 in the Arcadia Images of America series. TMS Board member Joan Berman is implementing a grant project in collaboration with the HSU Library to digitize the Katie Boyle Collection – this should be available on the TMS website by the end of the summer. HSU grad Rebekka Knierim has been working on this and other projects.

 – in her words:

In 2007 I began volunteering at Trinidad Museum Society, working with Ned Simmons with the goal of creating a complete inventory of Trinidad Museum acquisitions. We began with the photograph collection. The bulk of these were received from Katie Boyle who, as most of you probably know, was a long time resident and recorder of local history through photography: her originals, as well as shots taken of historical photographs and old family albums. Last year I began working on the project to digitize nearly 1,800 of Katie’s negatives, complete with her descriptions. Up until now, only a selection of these photos was available for viewing at Trinidad Museum. This project has been a blast! It has been wonderful to work so closely with Ned and Joan uncovering the many layers of Trinidad history and I feel very fortunate to now have such strong visual knowledge of the last 125 years of this area. In addition, we are finally completing that inventory list of TMS acquisitions just in time for the move to our new location!

NATIVE PLANT GARDEN'S FIRST VISITORS
The North Coast Garden Event in April, sponsored by Trinidad Civic Club and Patrick's Point Garden Club, included a noon tour by about thirty enthusiastic visitors to the Museum Native Plant Garden to the west and north of the museum building.

Ron Johnson and Virginia Waters showed the embankment, pathway, and pond plantings and growth progress, even with deer, crows, and critters all showing intense interest in the new shoots.

The hundreds of hours that these volunteers, along with Jill Mefford, Nancy Rehg, Jim Waters, Ingrid Bailey, Melanie Johnson, the CCC and the Brownies,have spent nurturing a garden to last for generations, are well spent and greatly appreciated.
After a year or two the garden should require very little water and be much less labor intensive.

CALIFORNIA COASTAL NATIONAL MONUMENT
Trinidad Museum continues to be an active partner with the California Coastal National Monument along with the City of Trinidad, HSU Marine Laboratory, Trinidad Rancheria, Yurok Tribe, Tsurai Ancestral Society, Department of Fish and Game and California State Parks.

Trinidad Museum will serve as the local information center for the Gateway, providing information about the offshore rocks and sea stacks, so plentiful and rich with life off of Trinidad's coast.

Bureau of Land Management representative Bob Wick chairs the quarterly meetings, the last of which was held at Trinidad Museum. The May 12 meeting of group representatives will be held at Cher-ae Heights at 10 a.m.

BEN B. CHENEY FOUNDATION GRANT
Tacoma-based Ben B. Cheney Foundation recently invested further in Trinidad Museum with the generous gift of $6,000 for exhibit cases, stands, display equipment and lighting. This followed their generous gift last year of $10,000 toward finishing the building.

Cheney Lumber Company owned much timber land in the Westhaven area. And even though the company no longer owns timber resources here, the Cheney family and Foundation board of directors has chosen to support cultural and educational enrichment and the general welfare of communities where timber production occurred.

The Ben B. Cheney Foundation directors could not be more gracious and supportive. Members of the board visited the old and the new museum site last fall. They saw that our remarkable collections could be displayed with more panache. And so the relationship with these fine people has continued. Trinidad Museum Society thanks them once more.

TMS IS GRATEFUL to RECENT MAJOR BENEFACTORS

Dr. Ray Davis and his family, W.E. Nelson, Frank and Sandra Davis, Mellow Dawn and Thoger Lund; Ruth Greenberg, Grant Ferguson and his family, Joan Berman, Ron and Melanie Johnson, Virginia and Jim Waters, Cher-ae Heights, Glenn and Janis Saunders, Humboldt Area Foundation, Anonymous, Trinidad Lions, Tom and Vicky Brooks, Trinidad Chevron, the City of Trinidad, the Snell and Van Alten families, Corlene Blue, Mike Morgan, Barbara Rips, Joseph and Peggy Mark, Claire Perricelli, Michael and Marion Moon, James and Carol Johnson, Patricia Spears, Steve and Debbie Duvoisin, Bill and Arlene Hartin, Beth Saunders Tulley, Beverly Harper, Judy Goucher and Tim Wykle, Connie Butler, Thomas M. White, Julie Fulkerson, Archie and Sue Mossman, and Kathleen and John Duncan.

TMS THANKS PROFUSELY RECENT CONTRIBUTORS

Elizabeth Hegy, James and Thea Gast, Robert and Mary Oswell, Allan Gradek, Lora Albright, Doug and Nancy Jager, Dick Bruce and Lois Harrington, John Calkins, Marion and Dick Nicholson, Gail and Bryce Kenny, Jim and Gay Morrison, Greg Anderson and Sherilyn Munger, Gene and Anne McCrory, Don MacGregor and Stephanie Samuels, Kamila and Terry Huff, Don and Barbara Ratzlaff, Steve and Karen Albright, Tom and Anne Odom, Bryce and Gail Kenny, Don and Beverly Zeman, Kathy Bhardwaj, Sharon Malm-Read, Charles and Pamela Netzow, Scott Baker, Bonnie Bliss, Melody Hamilton, H. B. and Dene Kaufner, Jan and Jack West, Don Bremm and Sharon Hanks, David and Sharon Winnett, Green Diamond Resource Company, Ken Thrailkill, Mike and Jean Chirhart, Faith McConnell, Kathleen Baker, Doug Ploehn, Ned Simmons, Tom and Traudl Sharp, Allie Lindgren, Jill Mefford, Glenn and Diane Stockness, Thomas Watts, Una Clayton, Billie and John Crowley, Victoria Webb, Carolyn Eisner, Ron and Jean Wichelman, Carla Powell, Wilda Gallacci, Bill and Eve Murison, Betty and Donald McDermott, Frank and Leah Lara, Barbara Earl, the Nash and Hunt families, Robert Libershal, Ben Morehead family, Nancy Hogan, Nancy Rehg, Tony Platt, Sandra Fredrickson, Roy W. Tucker, Loren and Laurel Parker, Marie Kelleher-Roy, Patricia Tetzner, Bonnie Mesinger, Pat and Ken Kish, Jackie Hogan Hosmer, Sonja Roseth, Marie Kelleher-Roy, Dan and Penne O'Gara, John and Betty Nicklas, Bob and Carol Hallmark, Jim and Jan Brown, Elsie Isackson, Elrid Spinas, Dean and Judy Heyenga, Vicki Farmer, Bella Baskets, Bank of America, U.S. Bank, Plaza Design, Garden Gate, Ten Window Williams, Carl Johnson, Natural Selections, Umpqua Bank, Old Town Antiques, Jenny Dodd, Eureka Historical Society, Clark Museum, Heritage Antiques, Trinidad Civic Club, 101 True Value Hardware, Kathleen and Sam Manaktala, Courtney Aldworth, Rebekka Knierim, and Jim and Penny Dunn for money, materials, support and collections.

IN ADDITION, heartfelt thanks to the artists and the purchasers at last year's CHAIRS! gala:

 

Mary O'Reilly, Steve Musick, Karen Gorick, Trinidad Chamber of Commerce, Richard and Cynthia Johnson, Dick Bruce, Steen Trump, Kathleen and John Duncan, Katherine and BruceWayne, Barbara Rips, Alex Stillman, Georgia Bednar, Bonnie Mesinger, Jeanine Martin, Michele Woodburn, Charles and Pamela Netzow, Libby Mikles, Marian and Dick Nicholson, Linda Moore, Joan and Charles Field, Jerry and Barbara Stelz, Anne Kenny, Sharon Ferrett and Sam Pennisi, Sharon Malm-Read and Michael Gonzales, Virginia and Jim Waters, Jennifer Pierce, Leslee and Ed Morabito, Lois Harrington, Big Lagoon School, Marvin Trump, Paula Levine, Caroline Roche-Perkins, Donna and Ray Dennison, Kathrin Burleson, Peggy Jane Murray, Julia Bednar, Jee Eanni-Rheinschmidt, Sheanna Hess, David and Bonnie Etz, Kathleen Baker, Jared DeLong, Arlene de Long, Nina Groth, Donna Lin, Bea Stanley, Dolores Terry, Marian Hill-Rocha, Anita Punla, Beverly and Don Zeman, Marilyn Sterling, Connie Butler, Rose Kidder, Ned Simmons, Carol Peters, Janine Volkmar, Sam Lundeen, John Crater, Kahish, Faith McConnell, Linda Hilgeman, Linpress, Rex Bohn, Nancy Holsey, Marcia Hadley, Diane Williams and Marlene Hall.

Editor's Note: If you have recently sent a membership or a contribution and your name is not listed above, please call 677-3816 or email baycity@humboldt1.com and you will receive an immediate apology and correction in the next newsletter.

TRINIDAD MUSEUM DOCENTS
The docents at Trinidad Museum sometimes are the first people visitors meet in Trinidad.
If you read the handwritten comments in the heavy, ancient guest book at the museum, you get a sense of how important these welcoming, knowledgeable people are to new friends and old.
Docents volunteer hours of their summer to making a museum visit one that is memorable. The variety of visitor interests is fascinating. Some want to know about everything: the whaling, basket-making, mushrooms, sea life, the whale bones, the historic photographs, Tsurai history, the Axel Lindgren canoe, the Susan Morton mural, the "touch-me" table and the fox pelt, the stuffed hawk, the artifacts, the garden, and the California Coastal National Monument story. They stay all afternoon. Others quickly and quietly inquire about one or two aspects of Trinidad's cultural or natural history.

Docents respond to the interest level of every visitor, who leaves with a little more appreciation of or curiosity about the North Coast. Last year, Allie Lindgren gave a private tour to a visiting Afghan teacher staying with Jan and Jack West.
Here are last summer's volunteers: Jill Mefford, Allie Lindgren, Tom Odom, Don and Barbara Ratzlaff, Sharon Malm-Read, Pam Topolewski, Vicki Farmer, Melanie Johnson, Nancy Mackie, Maria Bartlett, Pat Collum, Georgeanne d'Usseau, Mary Taylor, Bev Zeman, Ned Simmons, Rebekka Knierim, and Patti Fleschner.

Thank you all. And we hope you'll be able to continue at the new museum this year.

Editor Note: If you would like to hear about docent training and the fun of being a volunteer please call Patti at 707-677-3816.
Trinidad Museum Society
P. O. Box 1126
400 Janis Court
Trinidad, California 95570