We enjoyed meeting with museum members during our annual meeting on November 6. Food, drink, fellowship, and some delightful guest speakers -- including 10-year-old Lucy -- made for a pretty pleasant evening. 

2023 Year Highlights

• Chippewa Valley Museum and Wisconsin Logging Museum merged to become Chippewa Valley Museums. The merger added 1.25 staff positions, 5 buildings, ~1,500 objects, and $250,000 in assets to museum operations.

• 436 volunteers provided 6,344 hours of service. By comparison, 200 individuals volunteered last year.

• 4,449 students and adults participated in guided tours led by Education staff and 10 volunteer docents. 

• 31 separate individuals, organizations, and businesses made 99 unique reservations of museum spaces. Uses ranged from monthly meetings to a 50th anniversary party to a week-long day camp.

• CVM hosted four short-term exhibits-- two original exhibits, one guest-curated art exhibit, and a traveling exhibit. 

• Have You Heard?, an original multimedia exhibit, opened in the Farmhouse Theater. The theater closed in 2019 due to equipment failure.

Members will receive this year's annual report and Currents newsletter in December. And now for a look ahead....

News from the Archive

Interactive website makes L.G. Arnold Collection accessible

The L.G. Arnold Inc. Collection StoryMap is an interactive website featuring photos and brief histories of regional construction projects completed by general contractor L.G. Arnold Inc.  L.G. Arnold (1886-1965) founded the firm that worked around the Midwest from 1935-1975.

Under Archivist Jodi Kiffmeyer’s supervision, intern Sarah Bautsch designed this StoryMap website. The site uses online maps as hubs to explore information about L.G. Arnold construction projects over several decades. It’s also intended as a learning tool for students studying historic construction methods. 

Dean Arnold, one of L.G. Arnold's grandsons, provided the funding and archival materials to make this project possible. Dean has established an endowment fund at the Eau Claire Community Foundation to support a paid archival intern. A hearty thank you goes out to Sarah for her impressive work and to Dean Arnold for his generosity and commitment to preserving and sharing the history of our region.

Use the button below to explore the website.

Happening Soon!

Baseball Night at the Museum

with Jordan Hagedorn

Tuesday, November 21, 6:30-7:30 pm

Join Jordan Hagedorn for this fun-filled presentation on baseball cards and baseball players in Eau Claire. Jordan's love of baseball card collecting instilled a passion in him to elevate the hobby and connect with like-minded card collectors. In 2021 he started his card shop, For the Hobby Sports, in Eau Claire.

Zoom-based participants can register at no cost. In-person participation is included with museum admission ($12 for adults, $10 for seniors, $5 for students or included with museum membership). 

For registration assistance contact Program Manager Angela Allred, 715-834-7871. 

Holiday Happenings

Reindeer Games Escape Room

November 18 - December 31, Schlegelmilch House

Santa's reindeers decided to prank Santa by hiding his driver’s license. With the sleigh ready for take-off in an hour, he’s given up. Help Santa find the missing license and make kids all over the world happy. 

Location: Historic Schlegelmilch House, 517 S. Farwell Street

Cost: $140, 2-4 players, $35 each additional player up to 12 max. 

Ages: All ages, two adults minimum. No strollers.

Reservations required. Bookings available Wednesday, Friday-Sunday, Nov. 18 - Dec. 31.

For information about admission and reservations, visit tacticalescape101.com and select Schlegelmilch-CVM Fundraiser.

The Chippewa Valley Museum receives 25% of all escape room profits from Reindeer Games.

All Things Gingerbread

The museum's annual Gingerbread House Contest is on hold this year. It has been replaced by a whole slate of gingerbread house options. 

December

9-23

CVTC Student Gingerbread House Display

Chippewa Valley Museums has partnered with the CVTC Culinary Management program to bring twelve students’ end-of-term, made from scratch, gingerbread creations to the museum. Visitors will enjoy the variety of skills displayed by the students who are in all stages of the Culinary Management program. 

Wrapping up Play Ball

Family Fun Night

Tuesday, December 12 6:00 - 8:00 pm

Head to the museum December 12 from 6:00 - 8:00 pm for the Play Ball Exhibit Closing Party. This is your opportunity to see the exhibit before it closes December 30. BattersBox will be on site to serve baseball park-themed food. Kids (or young-at-heart adults) can make baseball necklaces and ornaments, play baseball  tic-tac-toe, and go on a baseball-themed scavenger hunt. A special “Did You Know?” program by exhibit curator Diana Peterson will feature baseball stories that DID NOT make it into the exhibit. 

There is no cost for this program, with the exception of food purchases.

Holiday Hours

Thanksgiving, November 23: CLOSED
November 24-25: OPEN, 12-5
December 23, OPEN, 12-5
December 24 & 25: CLOSED
December 31: CLOSED
January 1: CLOSED

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and welcome back winter.

Peace,

Carrie Ronnander
Chippewa Valley Museums Executive Director

P.S. Veterans Day annually takes place on November 11, the anniversary of the armistice which ended World War I. This year, the Chippewa Valley Museum selected Veterans Day as the date to host two showings of the 3D animated film "The War to End All Wars" set to music of Swedish heavy metal band Sabaton. 

The music and film stirred up some strong emotions within me. That war left 20 million dead, 21 million wounded and it was just so utterly pointless. The soldiers and civilians who survived the Great War lived to see their own children go off to war a generation later. As a middle-aged parent with draft-eligible children, I've become rather obsessed with this last point, a fact museum staff and my husband can confirm.

Compared to Europe and Russia, the United States got off pretty light, accounting for 2% of Allied military deaths and 757 civilian deaths. Russia lost 1.5 million civilians and 1.8 million soldiers. France lost 300,000 civilians and 1.397 million soldiers. The scale of loss is breathtaking, and yet each death was personal to some family. (A report by the European Commission shows casualties by countries. I just can't get my head around these numbers.)

Altoona HIgh School graduate and UW Madison law student Bruce Clarke was killed August 6, 1918 and buried in France. Between 1930-1933, the U.S. government covered travel expenses for women who wanted to visit the Eruopean graves of their sons and husbands. Georgia Clarke was one of the 6,654 women who took part in the Gold Star Mother Pilgrimage.

Although the war ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, it took months for U.S. soldiers to come home. The 1918 influenza pandemic didn't help. In June 1919, Eau Claire held a Homecoming Celebration for Great War veterans. Below is the social media post I wrote to recognize Veterans Day.

Military parade, 18 June 1919, Chippewa Valley Museum 912600-0062-001

On Wednesday, June 18, 1919, Eau Claire organized a celebration of massive proportions to pay tribute to the veterans who fought the “greatest of all wars." The day’s events began with a city-wide moment of silence at 10 am. Businesses closed, many for the day. (Tavern owners agreed to close from 1-6pm, but no later than that.) A military parade, reported to include more than 1,000 soldiers and sailors, marched down Barstow Street, starting at Madison and ending in Driving Park (now Third Ward).  At the front of the parade were disabled vets in vehicles. Soldiers and sailors tipped their hats as they passed the Gold Star mothers seated on the steps of City Auditorium (site of Children’s Museum of Eau Claire today).

A battalion review took place on Driving Park grounds following the military parade. Overhead, Ensign Grace demonstrated Uncle Sam's air power with an aerial exhibition. The afternoon included a civic historical parade down Farwell, army-navy baseball and pushball contests, boxing and wrestling matches at the Auditorium –- free for veterans –- water contests on Half Moon Lake, an “illuminated fire run on South Barstow”, and an evening dance. The American Red Cross served a free dinner to soldiers in uniform from 12:00 to 2:00 pm.

Veterans Day is a chance to pause and thank the living, just like the Homecoming Day did so long ago. Thank you, veterans.