You may have heard – we’re working on a new exhibit!
Grandfather’s barn was always an intriguing place: crammed full of all sorts of stuff that he kept because he knew he might be able to use it someday. Grandfather was of the generation that could fix anything, build anything, or turn something old and useless into something new and practical. Once people switched from horses to tractors for farm power, barns became the number one place to store all this good stuff.
in front of the barn at the Gatzke farm, 1943.
Some of your best memories are of helping Grandfather in his barn or shop, watching as the old junk got transformed, marveling at the skill with which he carpentered, welded, electrified, mechaniched, or engineered – seriously, was there anything Grandfather couldn’t do?
We need a few things to help complete this exhibit! Some photos of the inside of your grandfather’s barn, would be great – as you can see, we have a few photos of the outside of barns, but none of the inside. Even better would be photos of Grandfather working on something inside his barn!
We have tons (literally) of tools, so we don’t need any of those – but if you have an interesting example of something that Grandfather made by repurposing something else, we’d sure love to hear about that! It could be something really simple – a water trough made form a barrel, for example – or something decorative – a baby’s mobile made from old galvanized buckets – or something really elaborate such as… I have no idea. Grandfather’s imagination was obviously better than mine!
And, of course, we need a few old coffee tins or lard pails filled with nails and other hardware that Grandfather salvaged. How something like that has not yet made its way into the Museum’s collection is beyond me – but amazingly enough, we don’t have one. We’ll only accept a few of these, though, so if you have one to get rid of, make sure you’re the first to call!
Contact us at 250-428-9262 or crestonmuseum@telus.net if you can contribute to this exhibit!
