Vietnam Veteran Dennis Strayer, who retired from the Forest Service before volunteering at the Kerbyville Museum, introduced me to board members Linda Butler, Chuck Rigby and Lloydeen Davis (pictured, left to right), Michelle Binker, editor of the Illinois Valley Daily View and Kerbyville Museum board member.  Michelle was holding a camera, ready to document the Oregon Cultural Trust visit on Saturday afternoon.

The front porch on the Naucke House had been in desperate need of repair. As Dennis wrote in their grant request to the Cultural Trust, “Get 30 Fourth Graders up on that porch and sooner or later someone is bound to go through.” Enter the Four Way Foundation, a local lumber company, and the Oregon Cultural Trust to support the over $12,000 cost of repairing the porch.

People ask what impact a repaired porch will make and Dennis Strayer and Kerbyville Museum board members tell about March Heritage Day that happens every year in Illinois Valley. Fourth Graders from the local schools, who study Oregon History, have the opportunity to stand on the porch of an original pioneer home. They get to churn butter, see an original dry good display and open the post office boxes of the original settlers to their community.  During the summer they come back to sluice for gold, right in the front yard, on the very same land where the original Kerby General Store stood in the 1880’s.

Standing in a home that is over 130 years old, tells a lot about who we are as Oregonians, what we prized, how we survived and why we continue to thrive as a people. There is a big, kitchen; today we’d call it an “eat-in”. The house is situated so that the porch gets a breeze from the northwest that blows cool on a hot Southern Oregon evening.  And the music room is an integral part of the main house, set around a large fireplace, inviting family and neighbors to gather round on a cold winter’s night.

Michelle, Dennis, and I strolled through the museum, built in the 1960s on the site of the old store, seeing feathered hats, tiny buttoned shoes and an image of the only female Postmaster in Josephine County, Mary Dessinger, who served from 1885-1889. Story has it that one day a photographer from California came into town. He stayed a while and when he left, Mary Dessinger left with him, leaving behind her family. They eventually settled in the Columbia Gorge area.  Photos have been found of his studio there, showing Mary enjoying life up north.

One of the most unique and beautiful parts of the museum at Kerbyville is the military display. Inspired by Dennis Strayer’s own experience in Vietnam, last year the museum put together a special exhibit outlining the years from 1958 to 1975 with first hand accounts from Strayer’s photos and stories along with a lovely Hmong tapestry, donated for the exhibit by local patrons, who traveled extensively in the Laos and Cambodian area, among the Hmong people.

The special exhibit called “Seeing the Dragon – America in the Vietnam War 1958 to 1975” is a tribute to the local history of our foreign wars and makes the connection to our recent past.

At this year’s annual Heritage Days Illinois Valley fourth-grade students will be able to stand on the porch of the 131-year old  Naucke House, preparing to step into history, while Cultural Trust donors know that your generosity has gone to support a porch that is solid and sound, and that will hold our states’ history for future generations.

Learn more about the Kerbyville Museum at www.oregonmuseums.org.