Bright Dreams, Small Means

Bright dreams, small means :
the adventures of a museum volunteer
by Dorothy Honiss Kelso

When an institution names a Volunteer Award for you, two things are sure. You’re fairly long in the tooth and you’ve heard almost everything.

At Pilgrim Hall in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the country’s oldest museum, a visitor might assure you there’s "old stuff as good as this" in their attic. One lady sobbed over a 17th century bed "Just like the one they laid dear Mother out on". A wannabe lecturer proclaimed that the "Pilgrims came over on the Santa Maria to have Thanksgiving with the Indians." Perhaps my favorite was a lime-green-leisure-suited gent who said "Gimme 50 thou and I’ll make this old place a Disney World."

Docent duty can be a physical as well as mental workout. You might have to head off a demon toddler skateboarding in a 400-year-old cradle. Or haul a rotund visitor from snoozing in Governor William Bradford’s chair. ("Well, it doesn’t look that old. Are you sure it isn’t a fake?")

Sometimes, deeply moving moments occur -- as when one of my colleagues, noting a small hearing-impaired visitor, signed "I love you!"

It was 15 or so years ago that I was recruited for Pilgrim Hall’s first-ever docent team. Times were hard, the museum was sorely beset by financial problems and endeavoring to shed its "Mayflower-descendants-only need apply" image. To broaden visitor appeal, the trustees tapped the new docent pool for an education committee : four grizzled grandparents, without any budget.

We were all former teachers -- three female, one male, covering in our time kindergarten through graduate school. We all confessed to dreadful memories of our first museum experiences. (Mine was of a dusty room full of dead birds.) We’d also lugged wiggling toddlers past Don’t Touch exhibits while pursuing our older kids charging towards the exit.

Scenarios like this dictated our goal : to make Pilgrim Hall user-friendly and fun for all ages while offering historically accurate information on Native Americans as well as colonists.

Our first effort was an Artifact Treasure Hunt, a clipboard activity aimed at middle schoolers. (Hopefully, they were able to read and could see into the exhibit cases.) But the game format has a spin, we asked for some open-ended value judgments. ("If you were a Native American, which artifact would you think most useful? Most beautiful?")

With the first of many versions in hand, I pounced on my then seven-year-old grandson, visiting from Kansas. He obligingly like the hunt, so we went public, handing it out to families and school groups. At first, kids eyed it suspiciously : another test, groan. When they found out it was just for fun, it went very well indeed. One young man came back three days in a row and finally informed us we needed to think up a new hunt

Museum officials agreed. So back to the drawing board for the Education Committee. More writing, revising, cutting and pasting copy to feed into the surly photocopier. Finally, "Imagine That!" -- a Treasure Hunt for beginning readers designed to introduce the museum experience as well as the Pilgrim Hall collection.

For school groups in the same age bracket we devised a "Mayflower Trunk" activity. Using an historical look-alike reproduction trunk decorated by the committee’s clever artist, kids were invited to pack for that long-ago voyage to a new home. To add verisimilitude they dressed up in "Pilgrim" clothes. (Among them was my mother’s scarlet Bushnell Memorial opera cape -- just the ticket for showing that Pilgrims liked bright colors. It was Boston Puritans who wore black and gray.)

I would have liked to provide a Pilgrim eating experience, complete with near beer. I’d observed an English National Trust school group quaffing enthusiastically as they reenacted the sighting of the Spanish Armada. My colleagues shook their heads. "We’re not ready for that yet, Ducky." (But, if as we hope, the "Mayflower Trunk" goes on video for national distribution I might bring near beer up again!)

For nearly a decade, our Gang of Four cranked out all kinds of educational materials : practice on primary source research for teens; an annual annotated book list for teachers; Spanish versions of all the Treasure Hunts; handouts for special exhibits, and more.

But while we were spinning away, trusting we were winning friends and influencing people, the trustees had to pay for our rapacious appetite for paper and replace not one but two copiers. Clearly, our programs couldn’t continue unless we were self supporting.

We decided our money maker would be a teaching manual, scholarly yet lively. (To get the right tone was hard : my years in the newspaper world were regarded as corrupting.)

We were, however, totally in accord on our message : that the Pilgrim story is everyone’s. Somewhere along the line, maybe only a generation ago, someone came to this country from another place. The journey was usually perilous and the settling often hard and discouraging. "An adventure almost desperate," wrote Pilgrim William Bradford, and that became our title.

Along with accurate historical information, we compiled and tested a number of classroom activities. Kids could make an Elizabethan alphabet (including that funny "s" like "f"). The final result was almost 100 pages long, all material reproducible without copyright fees, and priced to sell. But would it?

We exposed "Adventure" at a big Boston Social Studies convention along with a home-made slide show about the museum. In the midst of the presentation, the yard-sale projector unaccountably burst into a spirited rendition of "America the Beautiful" (thank you, dear Pilgrims, wherever you are!). With a sign like this we dared once more, and mailed "Adventure" out to a string of big name trade publishers.

Wonderful to tell, Scholastic wrote back, offering to adapt our book to their "Museum Learning Connections" series. In return, a share of royalties would go to the museum. A year later, Scholastic’s full color Pilgrims was published. The first royalty check, significantly, appeared at Thanksgiving.

Today, Pilgrim Hall Museum has a bright new face and future. The hard work of transformation is the result of a remarkable team effort : dedicated trustees, a skillful innovative curator, and most of all a strong director whose many talents include grace and humor. Together with the little band of loyal docents, a shining dream has been realized from small means. In William Bradford’s word, "One small candle may light a thousand."

Editor’s note :
This inventive gang of four were Harriet Chapman, Frances Leach, the late George Horner, and our author Dorothy Kelso.

THE DOROTHY KELSO AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE

In 1995, Pilgrim Hall Museum instituted the "Dorothy Kelso Award for Excellence." In the words on the certificate, "The Pilgrim Society will present this award from time to time to an outstanding volunteer who has contributed extraordinary services to Pilgrim Hall Museum. The Dorothy Kelso Award for Excellence recognizes the qualities that demonstrate knowledge, expertise, and creativity, as well as a genuine concern for each visitor in providing a stimulating museum experience for young and old alike."

It is significant that the Pilgrim Society’s first award for excellence was named in honor of Dorothy Kelso and presented to her in 1995. "Ducky" epitomizes all of the qualities recognized by this award. She has been a tireless advocate for our younger visitors. Over many years, she has shown creativity, patience, and perseverance in developing and implementing educational programs for all ages. Ducky’s warm interaction with children and their parents has helped us light thousands of small candles in Pilgrim Hall Museum

		In 1997, the second Dorothy Kelso Award for Excellence was awarded to another outstanding volunteer -- a Fellow of the Pilgrim Society, a member of the Board of Trustees, a long-time active participant in various Pilgrim Society committees, and a fierce and tireless advocate for museum education - Frances D. Leach. Fran Leach was recognized not only for her past service as the original founder of the Pilgrim Hall education program but for her continuing educational service as the prime motivator behind the newly-inaugurated and continuing Docent Training Program. We thank Fran for inspiring, for invigorating, for urging us to progress beyond comfort and complacency -- we thank her and our visitors thank her.
Fran Leach is seen here on the left, with Kay Hart, winner of the award in 2005, on the right.

In 2005, the Dorothy Kelso Award for Excellence was awarded again - and not once, but twice, to two volunteers, both Trustees of the Pilgrim Society, who exemplify two different facets of the educational experience.

The first 2005 honoree is a long-time member of the Education Committee who has done more than her fair share of giving tours, as well as participating in the planning and execution of various docent training sessions. Her unique contribution, however, has been behind-the-scenes.

When groups book tours at Pilgrim Hall, they are given a guide - a docent. It is quite a task to match the appropriate docent to the appropriate tour - the docent must be not only equipped and happy to handle the particular type of group involved, but must be home to accept the phone call, free on the specific day and time, and agreeable to coming to the Hall and giving the tour! The job of Docent Coordinator is difficult & time-consuming. - and no one could do it better than Katharine Hart. Without her persistence, good humor, clear common sense, and dedication to Pilgrim Hall Museum, the wonderful tours that give our visitors such an interesting and stimulating experience could never happen.

The second 2005 honoree is a more recent member of the Education Committee and one who truly understands the importance of placing education at the center of EVERYTHING we do. In that spirit, she is not only a senior docent, but works in Admissions providing a warm and informative introduction to visitors from around the world, as well as serving as a tireless ambassador for Pilgrim Hall within the Pinehills community, bringing new residents in for guided tours.Recognizing that our educational mission cannot be fulfilled without major improvements to the Hall, she is an active member of the Campaign Steering Committee. Those who attended "Haunted by History" may know her as the pathetic and spine-tingling ghost of Polly Taylor.

In everyday life, our honoree is Deanna Nealey. We honor her for being a moving force in the evolution of an increasingly dynamic educational program.