Old artifacts get fresh look at BV museum

In the process of installing new ceilings, insulation, lights and paint, volunteers at the Buena Vista County Historical Society have stripped most of the museum's permanent displays to perform cleaning and repairs and to protect the artifacts during the construction work.

Among the interesting items to get an examination are a series of three large oil paintings in heavy gilded box frames. Little is known of the paintings' subjects, the artist, or how they came to reside in the museum. One is marked with a tiny faded cursive label on the back that seems to read "Haines children."

According to museum office manager Gwen Henrich, the paintings are believed to be connected to a family that pioneered the area near Storm Lake, plowing the first farm ground in the region, which is now the Highway 110 curve site adjacent to the Storm Lake airport.

Historical records indicate that Samuel Haines, a native of New Hampshire born in 1820, had traveled to the then-frontier prairie on a hunting expedition in 1863, several years before the town of Storm Lake was officially platted. He fell in love with the land and bought 640 acres for $8 an acre, planning to retain it for future hunting trips. Returning east, however, he couldn't get the site out of his mind, and he came back the following year to make his permanent home here. He built a princely country manor of 17-rooms from trees on the site, and farm buildings were build on foundations of concrete blocks formed on the site from sand taken off the nearby lakeshore..

Samuel has a well-deserved reputation for generosity, often opening his home to travelers and those in need, providing provisions to the hungry, and help to those who had suffered a hardship. A respected pioneer, Samuel died in 1911. The land passed down for six generations in the family, although descendants eventually moved away from Storm Lake. One apparently sailed "around the horn" and then dismantled his ship and used the ballast as material to construct the first building in Sacramento, California.

Samuel's grandson, Samuel R. Haines, married Helen McGreggor, a descendent of Captain James Ford, a wounded hero in the Revolutionary War, and later left Storm Lake for California. The younger Samuel had two daughters, Florence and Ruth, who may be the girls in the painting; or it could be his granddaughters, Eleanor and Helen.

About a year ago, visitors to Storm Lake and the museum noticed the paintings and told the museum staff that the girls in the unlabeled canvases were their great grandparents.

Plenty of interesting items were unearthed in the cleaning process, including a lucite-encased scale model of a proposed large monument for the courthouse green from years ago, with a doll used in the model to portray a soldier, celebrating the link between the county's name and the Battle of Buena Vista in the U.S. Mexican War of the 1840s.

The renovations at the museum are funded by a grant from the Buena Vista County Community Foundation, and is a final stage of work that includes a new roof and furnaces. The one time Model-T Ford dealership building is solid and with the improvements, more energy conscious.

The society hopes to seek another grant next year to upgrade its computer system.

The ceiling project was held off until the end of the tourism season, normally a down-time as volunteers tear down exhibits and prepare for the new season's show.

With most of the collection currently down from the main exhibit hall, hours have been reduced to Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings to allow renovation work to be safely done inside.

Work will soon begin on the 2012 exhibit, which will be based on the history of weddings, a theme suggested by longtime historical society leader Janice Danielson. It will give the society a chance to showcase its prime collection of historic bridal and formal clothing, and can also tough on everything from Victorian romance to music.

Anyone with exceptional items to contribute or loan may leave a message on the museum answering machine at 732-4955.

The new show will open with the society's annual meeting and open house, on the last Sunday in April.