Kelleys Island History Blog

In an earlier Blog post we noted that our opening day was June 26, 2010. So why does the cornerstone of the building say 2005? The Kelleys Island Historical Assoc. was formed in 1980. It was obvious that we needed a museum so we cleared out the stone church and move some of our more interesting items in. This was a tight fit since one-half of the space was also our gift shop. Back in those days, our logo was our letterhead. Not the best quality but it did the job. We didn’t even put our address on our letters! Next came our brochure. We still featured the church since that was the cornerstone of our organization, but we were looking to the future. This was the first step in raising funds for the new museum. " What's past is prologue " is a quotation from the play  The Tempest by William Shakespeare. The phrase was originally used to suggest that all that has happened before that time, the "past," has led what someone was about to do: commit or make another choi...

Can you believe that it has already been 11 years since we opened the doors on the new museum? Read all about opening day and the move from the church to the new building as documented in our Fall 2010 newsletter. We bet you’ll recognize many of these names. The new museum and gift shop officially opened on June 26, 2010. Our hours of operation were from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week. And we were, once again, able to run by an all-volunteer staff. Volunteers were recruited by Fran Minshall and worked the entire summer. The volunteers included: Pat Seeholzer, Leslie Korenko, Ed Frindt, Charlotte Halliwill, Knut Lahrs, Mary Ann Pileski, Carol Dodson, Shirley Crabill, Elsie Homegardner, Anne Eddowes, Fran Minshall, and Sharon Mclntire; along with substitute Lori Arnold. A huge thank you goes to all of these dedicated volunteers who made it possible for us to be open for the hundreds of interested islanders and island visitors to see our beautiful new museum, while learning about Kel...

Every museum has a ghost story (except maybe us), and every museum has that one item that is a show stopper. Ours is “that creepy doll”. Of course we don’t think the doll is creepy at all. She is quite charming. She was donated by Lydia Bechtel and she is wearing a blue skirt with a white blouse and cloth sweater. She has a lovely pearl necklace and earrings, and has lace-up black and white shoes and socks. In researching her, we discovered an advertisement for a similar doll with this description that closely matches our doll. A doll made by Simon & Halbig, which has a smooth, creamy bisque face with crisp facial modeling. She has four upper teeth, small ears, molded and feathered brows over deeply set, spiral threaded eyes that close for sleep with upper and lower lashes. Her hair is a Mohair wig, which likely had spiral curls at one time. We actually have several lovely old dolls which we are working at bringing back out into the museum. The scariest thing about this doll is how...

Check out our new video - This is a great opportunity to see what we are all about. There is a little bit about each of our standing exhibits, a look back at some of our more popular one-year only displays (Island electricity, Bathing Beauties, A Kelleys Island Kitchen, and commercial fishing exhibits).  Tour the Kelleys Island History Museum (2019)