In this week’s update: FREE workshop tonight, Pavilion repairs begin this week, Member and Donor Social, and more!
In our weekly update, keep up to date on what staff and volunteers at the Lindsborg Old Mill & Swedish Heritage Museum are working on to lift up the history of Lindsborg and the surrounding region. This weekly update both looks back at what happened last week and looks ahead at what’s coming.
For March 24-30, 2025:
- TONIGHT – Monday, March 31 at 6 p.m. – we will have a FREE online Zoom workshop on “Digital Image Preservation: Scanning & Saving Your Family Photos.”
Presented in partnership by Lindsborg Old Mill and Swedish Heritage Museum and the Kansas State Historical Society, this will cover best practices for scanning and imaging standards, creating a digital workflow, and the digital image preservation techniques used by the Kansas State Historical Society. The information will be useful for both the professional and the amateur family archivist.After a 20-minute presentation, there will be an opportunity for an in-depth Q&A session. Following Q&A, the museum’s Collections Manager will present a brief tutorial on how to navigate and search for pictures and scans in the museum’s Historic Image Database.Registration is required through the form HERE or calling 785-227-3595 and is limited to 100 people. Time is running out, though, so register as soon as possible!
- We are excited to share that this week we are expecting Perfect Blend construction to begin the physical structural repairs for the 1904 World’s Fair Swedish Pavilion! When completed in an estimated 6-8 weeks (and after some robust dusting), this will allow us to safely reopen the Pavilion to the public! Thanks to everyone who donated to help us reach the $151,500 needed for these critical repairs!
- Two upcoming genealogy workshop events are coming soon and are now open for registration! (Please note that we are now using a new process with the Eventbrite platform for registration and payment.)
Sue Schlichting with Pursuing YOUR Past will present “Inspiring the Next Generation of Genealogists” on Saturday, May 31. It is free for museum members or just $10 for non-members. Register and pay for the presentation at the link HERE.
Then on Saturday, June 7, we’ll have our next virtual Swedish Genealogy Workshop with four great sessions, including the return of Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective. The cost is $50, or $30 for museum members. Register and pay at the link HERE.
- Last Sunday we were excited to host our annual Member and Donor Social at the museum! We had a great crowd of about 30 supporters come to learn about all the latest happening at the museum, our plans for 2025, and share fellowship with their fellow history enthusiasts. Thank you to everyone who supports the museum financially!
- At 1:30 p.m. on this Friday, April 4 at the museum, we’ll be hosting a free special presentation by Dr. Jeff Broome of Arapahoe Community College at the museum, along with a display of paintings by Jim Nelson.
Dr. Broome will be talking about Susanna Alderdice – a 19th century settler near where Lincoln, Kansas, is today – who in 1869 was caught up in the violence in the Midwest surrounding conflicts between the United States and Native American tribes.
(Please note that while Dr. Broome’s presentation is not explicit, it does discuss historical violence and assault and is not recommended for children.)
- Our 2024 Annual Report is now available online! Give it a read to have a great overview of how 2024 went and plans in 2025.
- We processed a $1,500 donation under the Community Service Program tax credits to preserve the Swedish Pavilion!
There is still $59,189 in donation capacity under the grant in 2025! Qualified donors will help fund a new, more historically accurate roof for the Pavilion and may be eligible to receive a fully refundable 70% credit on their Kansas tax return! Visit www.oldmillmuseum.org/save-the-pavilion or call 785-227-3595 for more details. - We had two school tour groups visit last week – about a dozen from Wheatland Country School on Wednesday and more than 50 on Friday from Trinity Catholic in Hutchinson! We’re so glad you visited!
John Presley demonstrates wood carving to Wheatland Country School students and teachers. - On Saturday, April 12, we will be participating in the Chalk the Välk event in Lindsborg. As a side attraction to the main chalk art competition on the Välkommen Trail, we are sponsoring Éowyn – a local Lindsborg high school senior artist – to create sidewalk art from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the museum! We invite everyone to stop by and see her work!
Éowyn is graduating from Lawrence Virtual High School and Smoky Valley High School this May. She works with a variety of media, including watercolor, graphite, alcohol markers, ink, polymer clay, and oil paint. She has won multiple art awards, including Best of Realism at the Bethany College Regional Show in 2024, Gold and Silver at the League Art show in 2024, First Place at McPherson College’s Art Pop 2023 competition, and Grand Champion at the Tri-Rivers Fair 2024.
A commissioned watercolor painting of the 1904 World’s Fair Swedish Pavilion that Éowyn created for the museum’s holiday cards. - Aubrey finished the application for archives funding to the Mellon Foundation.
- We have an opportunity to help the museum while picking up a great computer tablet for yourself! THREE of these have already been sold; get one of the TWO remaining before they sell out!
We recently used grant funds to purchase five Lenovo P11 (2nd gen) tablets to implement our first augmented reality tour of the 1898 Smoky Valley Roller Mills, only to discover that Lenovo sells slightly different builds of the tablet under the exact same model name. Unfortunately, that slight difference – most likely in the GPS location services – means it won’t work with the Wintor augmented reality app we’re using for the tour, and Amazon is not accepting a return of the tablets.
This means a great opportunity for you! You can purchase one of these never-used tablets (specifications here) with charging cord and AC adapter, plus a heavy duty protective case (with hand strap, shoulder strap, and kickstand) for $265, which just represents the cost we paid for each tablet and case. This will help us to recover the grant funds and purchase different tablets that will work with the tour app.
Contact us at oldmillmuseum@gmail.com to make arrangements for your purchase!
- We have available now sponsorship opportunities for Millfest 2025 on May 3! Details for doing YOUR part and details on how to sponsor are on the flyer below! Just get in touch at oldmillmuseum@gmail.com for more information. We are currently at $5,475 total in sponsorships!
- Aubrey progressed on planning for Millfest and Millfest for Kids – communicating with vendors, school groups, volunteers, and demonstrators. Mark your calendars to attend Millfest on Saturday, May 3!
- Aubrey hired landscapers to work on front lawn restoration under the SPRINT Grant.
- Aubrey worked on edits to the new back gallery exhibit design.
- Lenora had coffee and recorded conversation about historical topics on Tuesday and Thursday last week. She plans to regularly continue these meetings to record stories of local history for future generations!
- We are pleased to be welcoming Humanities Kansas for their regular meeting here at the museum later this year in June! Lenora will also be doing a short presentation about the Svensk Hyllningsfest history preservation project during this meeting.
- Lenora is also working on a presentation for the Smoky Valley Historical Association later this year.
- Tyler and Lenora continued working on Svensk Hyllningsfest project, continuing to upload scanned images to Flickr. The project is expected to surpass 8,000 images this week and has received more than 326,000 all-time views.
- Lenora has been working with a researcher in Florida with local connections who has been working on a project to identify and date the various logos used by portrait photographer B.G. Gröndal as a tool to help date these photographs.
- Adam and museum staff fixed the intro video in the museum’s main gallery (the previous television was broken, so a new one has been set up to display this overview presentation.)
- Adam developed a draft poster for the second annual “Magic at the Mill” card tournament event on September 20! Watch this space for details and instructions on how to register.
- Lenora has continued working on an indexing project under contract with ArkivDigital (10 hours)
- If you haven’t yet “Liked” us on Facebook, can you take a moment to do so? We’d like to break 3,000 followers before springtime! (Currently our followers are at 2,706.) This kind of small action really does make a difference for our public visibility!
- Need a great gift for the genealogist or history enthusiast in your life? NEW in the museum gift shop, you can now purchase a gift certificate good for a free registration to one of the museum’s Online Swedish Genealogy Workshops anytime in 2025 ($50) or a 2025 Pursuing YOUR Past presentation ($10). Your gift recipient will receive a one-time-use code by email or mail good to pay for the registration fee for one of these popular sessions!
Thank you to our museum volunteers!
Last week, this included Jerry Hammerton, Mike Koch, Karmon Almquist, Les Sperling, Leland Nelson, Betty Amos, John Presley, and Julie Ann Neywick!