Spring cleaning? Donate antiques to tiny museum recovering from fire

Jan. 31, 2015, was a dark day in Marissa, particularly for anyone who cares about local history.

A suspected arsonist burned Marissa Academy, a 124-year-old frame schoolhouse that housed Marissa Historical and Genealogical Society’s museum and library.

The fire destroyed hundreds of artifacts and records, including an 1879 display case from the old Hamilton general store, a sock-knitter used to make socks for World War I soldiers, decades of school yearbooks and annual coal-company reports dating back to 1898.

“My son is on the fire department, and he called and said the fire was at the academy, and it’s completely gone,” said local historian Elda Jones, 91, a retired insurance broker. “It made me sick. It still does. I dreamed about it the other night.”

But things are looking up for Elda and other Marissa history buffs.

The society has opened a new museum in the former Marissa Village Hall and filled it with a surprising number of items that a fire-restoration company was able to save.

“A lot of the (printed) stuff that was down low, underneath counters, was in pretty good shape,” said President Kay Jetton, 74, of Marissa, a retired office clerk.

Larger items that survived include a chair made of 99 horseshoes by a local blacksmith; a damaged but intact walnut desk from the first Marissa Post Office; three chairs from the old opera house on Main Street; and a penny-farthing (high-wheel) bicycle, minus its rubber tires and leather seat.

The museum’s mascot, a 4-foot-tall wooden coal-miner statue, stands in the corner, albeit badly charred.

“It would fall apart if they tried to restore it,” said museum director Lois Waeltz, 69, of New Athens, a retired band director. “They just sprayed it with something so it wouldn’t flake off and deteriorate even worse and so it wouldn’t smell, and it doesn’t. And the mayor knew someone who could carve us a new one.”

Rising from the ashes

The new museum opened in October, just in time for Marissa’s 150th anniversary this year. The historical society is asking area residents to dig around their basements, attics and garages to see if they have anything to donate or loan for a good cause.

Spring cleaning? Don’t throw away that Marissa Township High School yearbook or Meteors basketball schedule.

Dan Seiber, retired St. Clair County weatherization coordinator and former mine examiner and track layer, already has stepped forward. He donated his father’s carbide lamp and his own leather belt with an anemometer, methane detector and self-rescuer.

“They weren’t doing me any good at home, and it was an opportunity to allow the public to view these items,” said Dan, 69, of Marissa. “This is a coal-mining community. My uncle told me that at one time you could stand in one spot and see six tipples. Everybody was a miner. At the Baldwin mine, where I worked, we had 600 employees.”

Dan’s old safety equipment now is part of a permanent exhibit called “Coal Country.”

“What we’d really like to have is a coal miner’s lunch bucket,” said society secretary Louise Bluff, 71, of Sparta, a retired school employee. “Every coal miner had one of those.”

Another permanent exhibit honors Marissa-area military personnel with photos, uniforms, guns and books.

The museum also has a wall dedicated to the late Margaret Alberta Hamilton, a Marissa resident who died in 1999 at age 88. She’s the society’s biggest benefactor.

“She left about a million dollars to a charitable trust, and each year the money it makes gets distributed to qualified organizations, including the museum,” said her niece, Helen Phillips, 64, who lives in Missouri.

One of Hamilton’s passions was preserving the academy building in Marissa Village Park.

After the fire, the society used insurance money to buy an antique spinning wheel, sewing machine, rolltop desk and school desk to replace four of their most important losses, as well as a computer, copy machine, filing cabinets and bookshelves.

Perhaps the most heart-breaking loss was a Civil War-era quilt donated by the local Coulter family.

“We purchased another quilt that was made during the Civil War, but it didn’t come from anyone in the area,” Lois Waeltz said.

String of suspected arsons

Marissa Academy was built in 1891 as a private college prep school. It later served as a meeting place for clubs and youths before the historical society took over in the ’70s. The Queen Anne-style structure made it onto the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

The village owned the landmark in 2015, when it was destroyed by one of five local fires in a week. Officials suspected arson but weren’t able to prove it.

“It was like a death,” said Dan, a lifelong Marissa resident. “It touched the whole town.”

Volunteers soberly picked through ruins and hauled out salvageable items, and the society began meeting in a vacant dollar store offered by businessman David Schneidewind. Plans for a new structure fell through, creating an uncertain future.

But a path cleared when Regions Bank closed its Marissa branch. The Village Board decided to buy its building, move village offices into it and allow the society to use the old Village Hall.

“These are great ladies,” said Mayor Jerry “Moe” Cross, who cast the tie vote for a relocation and renovation plan. “They are so dedicated to what they do, and I think it’s neat for the town to have something like this. There is a lot of history in here. It was just the right thing to do.”

The new museum covers 1,600 square feet, about the same size as the academy building.

“We’re downtown now, right next to the library, so something good came out of it,” Lois said. “We get more walk-in traffic than we used to, and we have a bathroom here. We didn’t have one at the (schoolhouse).”

Today, the society is busy compiling a history book for the village’s 150th anniversary. It’s expected to be out in time for the main celebration June 8-10, in conjunction with Marissa Coal Festival.

With a new museum and library, the society’s 50-plus members hope to expand in other ways.

“We want more people to get interested and get involved,” Louise Bluff said. “We need some new blood to help us and to learn.”

This story was originally published April 7, 2017 at 10:22 AM with the headline "Spring cleaning? Donate antiques to tiny museum recovering from fire."