Visiting The Swan River Museum

Last week I visited the St. Philippine Duchesne Memorial Park.  One of the signs in the park explained that the artifacts found there were kept at the Swan River Museum in Paola.  Because I live just a few blocks from there, I thought I would follow up on last week’s adventure, and go to the Swan River Museum.

I learned the museum is open weekdays, and does not charge a fee.  When I entered the museum, a kind man offered all sorts of information about the collection, although other people working there seemed surprised to have a visitor.

The museum itself winds around like a maze, and every so often I would think I had come to the end, but then I would ask for directions and a new space would appear.  It reminded me of a set of nesting boxes my high school English teacher sent to me when I graduated from college.  Each little box opened up into another little box, and in the last little box he left me a note.  It said, “Life is sometimes like this, one thing after another.”

The nesting boxes were cool, but I think the important part of this story is that my high school English teacher sent me a college graduation present.  Maybe this happens in Osawatomie all the time, but I went to high school in Ecuador and then on to college in Olathe.  So my teacher had to make quite an effort to send me a present.  I graduated from college 16 years ago, but I still have the boxes, and I still remember what the note said.  This reminds me that little things we do matter, sometimes much more than we know.

So if you are going to visit the Swan River Museum, don’t get stuck in the first nesting box.  Somewhere in box three you can see an old dentist chair, and later in box four you might find buttons and nails from the St. Philippine Duchesne Memorial Park.  Somewhere in there you can see the taxidermy animals from the Ursuline Academy.

Maybe all you will find is something to trigger a beautiful memory.

Short URL: http://osawatominews.com/?p=1364

Posted by admin on Aug 3 2011. Filed under Beth Gulley, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry