Memories

1976, BA-History

Year of Memory: 1955
When was your first visit to the Museum? Who was with you? What was your reaction?

I don’t remember the exact first time I went; it was a part of my childhood growing up in Ann Arbor in the 1950s, nearly as far back as I remember. I would guess about 1955 was the first time I was there. I used to go with my family. With what tremendous excitement! What I remember are two things: First, the zoo, long gone. The fox was incredible to see close up, so wary and alert to us, and the raccoon, and badger too. They all did, I have to say, look pretty sad, in their very small cement-floored cages behind bars. That part of the zoo was round like a pagoda, with the small cages radiating from the center. There was also a reptile area that my older brother was particularly fond of; I remember spotting the turtles and occasionally a snake. These were all outdoor exhibits, so in the winter, that part of the Museum grounds was desolate.

Second, the Museum itself. Of course the big cats out front, and the mysterious rotunda with its echoes, very low steps. A live gila monster in a cage on the landing and an opossum, I think. And many exhibits that stayed with me: the dioramas of the epochs of earth history, and the (outdated) mural of the eras, the dinosaurs and mastodon, Michigan wildlife and many more. The Native American dioramas fascinated me as different ways that people could live. Everything was there from insects in amber to the planets and stars.

I believe it was in first grade that I noticed that a large rock in the Angell School collection had markings that made it look like a fossil. No one seemed to know what it was, so we took it to the Museum and there it was identified as a mammoth (mastodon?) molar. That was an exciting discovery!

The Museum was always endlessly interesting; I got to know as much of it as I could. And of course the gift shop was a great reward for having climbed the stairway of knowledge to its fourth floor culmination. (In those days, it was in the back on the 4th floor, not near the entrance in the rotunda.) I still have a polished dinosaur bone mounted in a blue box with clear plastic cover that cost ten cents.

By now, you get the picture.

Later, in high school, I worked in an anthro/archaeology lab labeling potshards and cleaning artifacts. I was just happy to be around the work.

While I evoke my attachment to the place, I have to say that I am more than a little sad that the Museum is moving. I would want every child to experience that rotunda and those stairs to its balcony. There was something wonderful in the knowledge that this was like the grand museums of great cities, but on a smaller, one could say child-size or livable scale (not that it didn’t have grandeur at points). That made it special to me; somehow it was ours, Ann Arbor’s.

What role has the museum played in your life?

Aside from helping me visualize so much knowledge and giving me the love of natural history, I think I learned through the museum that evolution was a powerful and beautiful concept that united us with other living things and made things understandable in continually interesting ways. We evolved and we were part of the history of the natural world. That insight was a precious gain that still guides my thinking about many things. And the Museum helped give me a great respect for science in general.

Thank you for the opportunity to express my appreciation of the Museum. Every morning I have my tea from a Museum mug – logo on the front, list of exhibits on the back. (But I did not have to refer to it to remember any of this.)