Clack Museum events in the works

The H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum Board heard an update of upcoming events during its monthly meeting Monday in the Holiday Village Mall.

Clack Foundation President Elaine Morse and the Clack Museum Board Chair Judi Dritshulas, also an ex officio member of the foundation, told the board about the upcoming foundation annual meeting, set for the afternoon of Sunday, Oct. 26, at the Vineyard Room in the Duck Inn Restaurant.

Morse said the program will start at 4 p.m. and will include a meeting of the foundation at the end after a meal and a presentation on the theme “Campfire Tales.”

“It’s going to be ghost stories around the campfire,” she said.

Martin Holt and Pam Veis will be telling the ghost stories, starting with the story of the ghost legend of the Griggs building, which the museum foundation purchased last November to become the permanent location of the museum, the move for which is underway.

A local singing group also will provide entertainment.

Tickets for the event are $50, which includes an annual membership in the foundation, and are available at the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum in the Holiday Village Mall, Best Western Plus Great Northern Inn, Murphy’s Pub and The Coffee Hound.

Dritshulas also told the board about the event scheduled Saturday, Nov. 1, at 1:30 p.m. at the Best Western Plus Great Northern Inn, part of the state’s celebration of the 100th anniversary of passing women’s suffrage in the state.

Suzette Dussault of the Montana Humanities Speakers Bureau will be at the hotel portraying suffragist Jeannette Rankin, who lobbied the male voters of the state to pass the law, which did pass on a narrow margin Nov. 3, 1914 — six years before women were granted the right to vote in national elections.

Rankin went on to become the first woman elected to Congress in 1916 — also before women were granted the right to vote nationally.

Dritshulas said the program — “Jeannette Rankin, suffragette” — lasts about a half hour to 40 minutes, followed by a question and answer session. Refreshments also will be served, Dritshulas said.

Dussault also will make presentations to Havre schools the Monday and Tuesday following the Clack Museum presentation, Dritshulas said.

She said the annual Dinosaur Christmas event the museum holds in December also is in the planning stages.

Dritshulas also urged everyone to take a look at the latest Gramma’s Attic display in the museum. The display is changed throughout the year, using local items loaned to the museum mainly by local residents.

The latest display was set up by museum staff member Margaret Stallkamp and includes antique aprons, loaned by local historian Emily Mayer, and some of Stallkamp’s own collection of antique cookbooks, which ties in nicely with the women’s suffrage anniversary, Dritshulas said.

The display also continues to exhibit a Civil War-era style quilt brought in by board member Thomas Huether, who also is a re-enactor with the group that portrays the “Galvanized Yankee” 1st United States Volunteer Infantry, Confederate soldiers who were captured by the union army and agreed to sign on with the North in exchange for their freedom.

Museum manager Jim Spangelo told the board that the display also continues to include some camp stoves — with the women looking at the display commenting on the aprons and the men commenting on the stove, he said.

The board also opened a surprise donation during the meeting. Dritshulas read a letter from the offices of the Hill County Commission, Clerk and Recorder and Auditor along with $126 the employees in those offices donated to the museum.

Each Friday, employees can donate $1 in exchange for the opportunity to wear jeans, the letter said, and each quarter the employees then choose to what entity to donate the proceeds. The choice this quarter was the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum.