Students continue to help out at the Garnavillo Museum. Erlin Bell, UNI History Student, has committed 15 hours to the Garnavillo Museum doing whatever his onsite supervisor, Jane Thein, directs him to do. Erlin, whose home base is Monticello, Iowa, is enrolled in the University of Northern Iowa’s Public History Field Experience class. The course requires its students to volunteer 15 hours in the public sector. So far, Erlin has emptied the museum’s entry way exhibits in anticipation of installation of the new steel door, and has almost finished cataloging James O. Crosby’s Clayton County case file collection. Often the case files can be helpful in genealogy research depending on the type of case, so having them catalogued will be very helpful. Additional projects for his upcoming visit will include preparing an exhibit site for a new exhibit that another UNI student is currently working on, sorting and accessioning items, and preparing for some work in the museum’s kitchen. Clayton Ridge 5th grader, Luke Sadewasser, has also been volunteering at the Garnavillo Museum. Last summer he did some mowing around the museum, and recently has helped with some cleaning. The Garnavillo Historical Society is so appreciative of the work the students do.
