After a year’s absence, the Powers Institute Museum in Bernardston will reopen to the public on May 2, with new acquisitions on display.
Located on the second floor at 20 Church St., the museum is free to visit and is open on the first Sunday of each month, May through September, from 1 to 4 p.m.
The museum has not been open since the fall of 2019. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak last year, the Selectboard did not permit the museum to open during the 2020 season as a health safety precaution. This year, Bernardston Historical Society President Lou Atherton said she and fellow members were given the green light to reopen starting May 2, with health safety guidelines in place.
The Powers Institute Museum first opened in 2002 and has more than 1,700 inventoried objects on display, all of which are related to Bernardston. Some items on display were owned by the town, but most have been donated by area residents.
In the last year, Atherton says she and other members of the Historical Society have been getting the space ready to reopen by cleaning items and incorporating new additions. Members Ingrid Skiff and Richard Nelson, for example, recently hung up some of the newest acquisitions — 15 framed pictures of Bernardston landmarks that were previously displayed in the Four Leaf Clover Restaurant at 19 South St. These items were donated after the restaurant closed in December 2020.
“When the Four Leaf first opened (its) doors in May of 1949, I was the first waitress who, at 6 a.m., unlocked the door,” Atherton recounted.
The historical collection also includes a military corner with uniforms, medals and a framed contract signed by local Minutemen who joined the Revolutionary War.
Atherton’s brother made a World War II Honor Roll, which previously hung in Cushman Park. One new acquisition is a tribute to Bernardston military veterans who were killed serving their country, and others who were held as prisoners of war.
Some other items of note, Atherton said, include a wreath of human hair made by the Newton-Streeter family. She said the Historical Society also has books that list inventories of the three town cemeteries, so residents are able to locate a relative’s plot. Even more items range from farming tools and musical instruments to wedding gowns from different decades.
“With wedding dresses, rarely were they white because they wore it for their best dress for the next 10 years,” Atherton said. “You didn’t put all that time into making your dress only to wear it one day, and it sure wasn’t going to be white because you had to wear it in the winter more than in the summer, so they were heavy-duty.”
The Powers Institute building at 20 Church St. was the town’s high school for 100 years, starting in 1857. Atherton’s parents graduated from the school in 1916, with her father as the only boy in their class. Atherton, who is now 87, graduated from the Powers Institute herself in 1951. The school closed in 1957, when Pioneer Valley Regional School was built. One room of the museum is still set up with old-fashioned desks, and has pictures of graduating classes dating before the 1900s.
After the school closed, the building was temporarily vacant before undergoing 10 years of renovations by a group of volunteers leading up to the 2002 opening. Many of these volunteers, Atherton said, have since died.
“There was a core group of us, about 12, who worked every other Saturday for 10 years,” she said. “We applied for grants and got $1 million worth of grants. But that couldn’t be used in the museum, it could only be used for the seniors downstairs. … So anything you see in the museum is all volunteer work. We climbed ladders, we painted, we spackled. I couldn’t tell you all we did.”
Parking for the Powers Institute Museum is located off Library Street, and the second floor is accessible by elevator and stairs. As a health safety restriction, masks must be worn inside the building.
Zack DeLuca can be reached at zdeluca@recorder.com or 413-930-4579.