The message arrived in a timely fashion, on a Wednesday morning. I was not booked for the afternoon, but I certainly wasn’t anticipating the name Mrs. Mallandaine to pop up in my email. Tammy Hardwick, manager of the Creston Museum and Archives, knows how to get attention.
All summer I had intentions of taking one of Hardwick’s museum bus tours, designed to educate visitors and locals about Creston history. Somehow the timing never seemed to work out and the poke from Mrs. Mallandaine was not without a sense of a urgency — last Wednesday’s hour-and-a-half tour would be the last of the year.
“ ‘Mrs. Mallandaine’ wishes to remind you that her last journey to Creston’s past for the summer of 2015 will be departing the Museum at 2:00 this afternoon. If you are able to attend, she has a seat reserved for you in the ‘buggy’.”
I replied that I could not turn down an invitation from such an august personality, especially in August.
Mrs. Mallandaine? My local history knowledge is far from thorough. I might sneak by with a C on a test. But I do know enough to appreciate that as a young woman Jean Ramsay had taught school in Creston. Later, she would marry Edward Mallandaine, an engineer who, with F.G. Little, would choose the present site of Creston while working on a survey party for the railway. The couple would be become a formidable force in the town’s early history.
I arrived at the museum on a dark, smoke-filled afternoon, paid my $15 entry fee (graciously declining the offer of a free ride) and soon boarded the “buggy”, a BC Transit community bus. The smoke had taken its toll on tourism that day and the only other passenger (some of the earlier tours were packed) and I were soon being instructed by Mrs. Mallandaine (a.k.a. Tammy Hardwick), replete in her prim white blouse and long, slender green skirt.
In my earlier years I used to make a point of visiting local museums in my travels. I have fond memories of tours through museums on Quadra Island and in Prince Rupert. They only rarely appear on my radar now (though I still want to visit the Torrington Gopher Hole Museum in Central Alberta, where stuffed gophers are dressed to resemble townspeople). On my visits to the Creston Museum, though, I am inevitably transported back in time. And my first thoughts go to that massive community effort to acquire many of the items donated to a failed effort near Yahk in the early 1980s. Leaders of the day showed great foresight when they managed to acquire the stone house on Devon Street, on a large property that has served the museum and archives extremely well over the years.
Our tour took us through the downtown core, down to the old Endicott property (now Spectrum Farms) and out and around Erickson. Mrs. Mallandaine shared photos to illustrate how Creston and area looked a century ago, and she had information and anecdotes to accompany them. It was a joyful afternoon to be in her company and do a little vicarious time travelling with her.
That afternoon did not end my museum experience for the week. On Saturday evening, once again in smoke-filled air, I pulled out my old folk festival lawn chairs and headed to the museum courtyard, where staff and volunteers had arranged a movie night. Admission included a glass of wine and a variety of tasty food morsels and I settled in beside a friend to enjoy Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire in Funny Face, a deservedly classic film. Low volume sound and a wrinkly sheet that doubled as a movie screen did nothing to detract from the evening’s pleasure. The small crowd seemed very pleased to participate in a lovely event that will surely be requested again next summer.
Tammy Hardwick, with her staff, and volunteers have created something of a miracle on that Devon Street property. The Creston Museum, in my estimation, is as good as it gets for small-town museums. What sets it above so many others, though, is the continual effort to reach out into the community and connect with people in countless ways, all designed to remind us of what a remarkable asset we have in this community. We are fortunate indeed.
Lorne Eckersley is the publisher of the Creston Valley Advance.