Museum President Terri Knachel facepaints a young museum patron.
Category: Heritage Society
Gardening at the Museum, Fall 2015
Volunteer Adrienne Luciano
The Heritage Society of Essex and Middle River is an all-volunteer non-profit organization. Volunteers like Adrienne help keep the history of Essex alive by donating their time by conducting tours, arranging displays, maintaining the building and grounds and working on the archives. Interested in becoming a volunteer? Contact us!
Volunteer Adrienne Luciano prepares to take a family on a tour of the museum.
Memorial Day, 2016
Heritage Society Names New ‘Right Hand Man’
By Dan Baldwin (The Avenue News, 2/5/2016)
The Heritage Society of Essex and Middle River has a new vice president. Newly-elected President Terri Knachel nominated Rhonda Hardesty as her “right hand man” during the group’s monthly meeting on Thursday, Feb. 4th, 2016.
Knachel was named the museum’s president last month after June Donovan stepped down from the position.
The new president and vice president are no strangers when it comes to working together, Knachel said. The pair have worked together in the past through their artistic ventures.
Hardesty is the proud owner of Fantasy Artz Studio in Essex and Knachel is the owner of Defy the Ordinary Artworks in Middle River. Both artists specialize in painting murals and face and body art.
With her background in art, Hardesty said she looks to bring a lot of her artistic and creative ability to the museum. One way in doing so would be to having the museum host Paint Night fundraisers, she
said.
“I plan to be [Knachel’s] right hand man and do whatever needs to be done,” Hardesty told the Avenue. “I want to see the museum prosper, and flourish, and bring in new people. I want to see more adults and children, and to see more people of our generation.”
“There is a lot of heritage around here that we don’t want to be lost,” she added.
Continue reading at The Avenue News.
Heritage Museum is Essex’s Best-Kept Secret
The Heritage Society of Essex & Middle River and its Heritage Museum is the perfect place to learn about the community’s history.
By Keith Roberts (Essex-Middle River Patch, 4/18/2011)
It is educational, entertaining, nostalgic, historic and quite possibly the best-kept secret the community of Essex and Middle River has to offer.
I am speaking of course of the Heritage Society of Essex & Middle River and the Heritage Museum located at 516 Eastern Blvd.
An Essex resident named Alex Baumgartner founded the Heritage Society of Essex & Middle River. Baumgartner exhibited an extremely keen and insightful interest in the area’s history and began collecting stories, information and artifacts in the early 1960s.
It was not long before he discovered other area residents who shared his interests and passions; at informal gatherings, they would discuss the things they had found.
These informal meetings led to the official organization of the Heritage Society of Essex & Middle River on Sept. 26, 1968. The originators and first officers of the society were: Alex Baumgartner, president; Laura Hensler, vice president; Helen Baumgartner, secretary; Mary Corey, treasurer; Earle Scoggins, sgt. at arms; Horace McCarter, publicist; John Ruley, historian; and Trustees Emma Dunham, Virginia Borsos and Kay Wolfe.
In the beginning, the society operated as a committee of the Essex Recreation Council. Their meetings were held in Essex Elementary School. The school let the group use a closet in the building as a storage room for the large number of stories, pictures, articles and memorabilia members had collected.
More from Essex-Middle River Patch Five Healthy Super Bowl Snacks 10 Most Romantic Spots in Baltimore County Maryland Comptroller Suspends 27 Tax Preparers In the 1970s, Baltimore County constructed new police and fire stations for the town of Essex. This left the old Essex police and fire station, built in 1920, vacant. The Heritage Society lobbied the county to be allowed usage of the building to house their memorabilia and create a museum for the community.
The plans came to fruition in 1975. The Heritage Society of Essex & Middle River was officially chartered as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and the Baltimore County Government voted to lease the old building to the society. Society members went right to work, transforming the aging structure into a museum where all could come to learn more about their past and the community’s history. Donations of artifacts and historic items of local interest increased.
While keeping part of the building dedicated to the police and fire departments that began there, the museum is a visual picture of what the town of Essex was. Visitors can see some of the original equipment used by Essex businesses such as the Essex Candle Shop and Doc Lazarus’ Pharmacy. Rooms are designed around the Glenn L. Martin Plant, early Essex schools, early tools, politics and much more. A new addition to the museum is the Veterans Room, which honors all from the area who have served in the Armed Forces.
However, one of the society’s crowning achievements is not contained in the museum. While doing some research in 1968, Baumgartner came across the deteriorating remains of a house on the lower Back River Neck Peninsula. A deed search showed that the property once belonged to the great-great grandfather of George Washington in the mid 1600s. Members of the Stansbury family began the first parts of the house in the late 1700s. During this U.S.’s Bicentennial Celebration, the Heritage Society enlisted the support of the Baltimore County Bicentennial Committee to have the house restored and placed on the National Historic Landmarks List.
Donovan to leave Essex Day, Heritage Society
By Dan Baldwin (Avenue News, 1/5/2016)
Essex resident June Donovan wears many hats. Though many may not recognize her name, they are surely familiar with her work. For more than 12 years she has served as a co-chair for the annual Essex Day Festival and has been the president of the Heritage Society of Essex and Middle River since January 2013, now serving her second term.
Donovan has decided to hang up her hats and is in the process of making sure the Heritage museum and Essex Day Festival are left in good hands as she plans to move to Murrelles Inlet, S.C., after living in Essex for the past 20 years.
According to Donovan, her involvement with the museum first began in late 2012. At the time the museum was struggling and she received a call from Paul M. Blitz to see if she was interested in joining the museum and becoming the next president.
“[The museum] was in disarray,” Donovan told the Avenue. “Things of quality were stored away in closets and under tables that should have been out on display.”
As the newly elected president, Donovan, along with her team of newly elected board members, quickly got to work painting interior walls, reorganizing exhibits, and clearing out storage areas to store items properly.
“My main concern was making sure the museum was accessible to the public and to get more people to come through the door,” Donovan said. “I think we accomplished that.”
Under her leadership the museum has hosted numerous new functions during the past few years, welcomed several Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, hosted private tours and ghost hunts, and much more. The return of the annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in 2014 was also orchestrated by Donovan.
According to Donovan, her favorite exhibit room in the museum is the newly opened Military Room, a room which she and her dedicated volunteers put together “from the floor up” and dedicated to all branches of the U.S. Military. Previously used for storage, the space now features a U.S. Navy outfit from World War II, which was donated from a Rockaway Beach resident, several personal items donated by the late Al Clasing, an American flag which was previously flown at Holly Hill Memorial Gardens, and much more.
“We are very happy to have Mr. Clasing see [the Military Room] before he passed,” Donovan said. Clasing passed on Dec. 16, 2015.
Not far away from the Military Room sits Donovan’s favorite donation the museum had acquired last year, an original turnout coat belonging to Capt. Charles “Buck” Horner who worked at the firehouse before it was converted into the Heritage museum.
Donovan will officially give up her presidency Thursday evening, Jan. 7, during the Heritage Society’s next meeting. She will be replaced by former vice president Terri Knachel, who will finish out Donovan’s term until the end of the year.
“I enjoyed the entire experience,” Donovan said about her time volunteering with the Heritage Society. “I can’t just pinpoint one thing. I enjoyed all the functions. I enjoyed all the people.”
The second void Donovan needed to fill before her departure from Essex was her replacement to take the reigns of the popular Essex Day Festival.
Donovan has been the co-chair of the festival since George Willbanks offered his position to her shortly after 2000.
“George was running the festival and was going to give it up,” Donovan recalled.
According to Donovan, the yearly festival would most likely have come to an end if someone didn’t come in and replace Willbanks.
Even though the long-time co-chair is leaving, familiar faces will still be seen at next year’s festival.
Joe DiCara will return as the festival chairman, and he will be joined by co-chairs Kevin McDonough and Carol Karwacki. Both McDonough and Karwacki volunteered with last year’s festival and Donovan assures she will be passing all of her knowledge on to them so this year’s festival will go on without a hitch.
“I’m looking forward to being able to provide some of my assistance and expertise to the festival,” McDonough said. “Currently the new leadership is taking a good hard look at all aspects of the festival and seeing how we can tweak and improve upon things to keep this time honored community tradition alive and successful.”
McDonough is familiar with putting on large one-day events as he is also the Middle River Fireworks Committee fundraising chairman.
The remaining staff will be made up of former co-chair Randy Carr and Tasia Darden.
“I think they will make the festival 10 times better,” Donovan said. “I really do. The festival is such a strong part of the community. It’s one day to get everyone together and enjoy it.”
June Donovan: The Curator of Two Local Treasures
By Kevin McDonough (The Avenue News, 9/24/2015)
On a rainy Saturday morning in September, just inside the doorway of an old 1920s brick firehouse, which adorns the bustling commercial corridor of Eastern Boulevard in Essex, sits a woman shuffling through receipts and checks preparing fora trip to the bank to make a deposit for the upcoming Essex Day street fair in two weeks.
June Donovan is a busy woman. The 77 year old crosses off “bank deposit” on her to-do list and looks at the remainder of her list with angst. She is credited as being the glue that over the last few years has held together two longstanding community institutions for her Essex neighborhood and saved them both from the brink of extinction.
Although she is not an Essex native, she has lived in the area for more than 25 years and has become enthralled in the area’s history and goings on.
“When I entered this community, it became my community and I wanted to be a part of it,” Donovan said.
Continue reading “June Donovan: The Curator of Two Local Treasures”
Nickel Family Home Movies, Turkey Point
Nickel Family Home Movies, 1940s-1960s
These home movies screened as part of Baltimore Museum of Art’s “Baltimore Home Movie Day 2015” during their “Imagining Home” Opening, October 25th, 2015.
Clips include “Rockaway Beach Volunteer Fire Department Training, 1947,” “Rockaway Beach 4th of July Parade, 1952,” and “Ancient and The Honorable and Ancient Nobles of the Hardshell Crab Feast, 1948.”
