Volunteers keep history alive in Killarney

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This article was published 02/06/2022 (1561 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After months of renovations and hard work, the J.A.V. David Museum in Killarney has new life, adding to the history of the Turtle Mountain community.

Local resident Ann Magwood first joined the museum as a volunteer in November 2019. The J.A.V. David Museum is currently run by five volunteers and a summer student the community is able to hire each year.

Recently, Magwood and her team were delighted to welcome more than 30 people to the museum for a Manitoba Day Tea event on May 12. The event marked the first time the public could gather in a space that was in much need of repairs.

“The museum needed a complete makeover,” Magwood said.

“The fact they were able to open up that quickly after the renovations were done was huge.”

The present museum was built in the late 1970s, according to Magwood. After an outdated carpet began to deteriorate and the building began to have some air quality issues, a local contractor was hired for the renovations. By late November, Magwood and the team got to work getting the space ready.

“This winter was spent boxing and moving all the artifacts in readiness for renovations, courtesy of the Killarney Foundation,” said J.A.V. David Museum chairperson Joyce Dietrich.

“Dennis Kowal had the contract for painting and laying new flooring. We also had an air exchanger installed to help with air quality in early January, and just removing the 45-plus years of old carpet has certainly helped, too.”

Magwood said she went to a meeting on behalf of the museum last year, when the group asked the Killarney Foundation for $19,000 worth of funding to restore the outdated space. The museum was elated when they learned the foundation would up that amount to $24,000 to get the renovations completed all at the same time.

After Kowal finished the work, Dietrich, Magwood and the rest of the volunteers welcomed a few friends to start unpacking the building full of boxes ahead of the Manitoba Day event.

Magwood laughed as she said the museum still has four boxes of antique chinaware that has not been touched after already setting up three sets in the space. Looking around the space, she is in awe of the different local artifacts that now cling to the walls.

Magwood said 2022 has presented the opportunity for the museum to showcase the history of education in the community through a large tapestry.

“We have a beautiful quilt that a lady designed and it has every single country school, country church and elevator on it in the Killarney and Turtle Mountain area,” she said.

“I love history. I always have, and that’s one of things we have going.”

On one wall, volunteers have carefully reassembled the museum’s large nature exhibit, which traces some of its roots to Charles Havelock, a Killarney high school teacher who taught in the early 20th century.

Magwood said their display of wild birds that were stuffed include several owls, pheasants, grouse and other water birds, one of which dates back to 1935. A large stuffed swan and cougar join the rest of the birds in the taxidermy collection.

She continues to enjoy expanding the museum’s large military display, which has an honour wall, a collection of old war medals and a tribute to everyone who served from the Turtle Mountain Community in the First and Second World Wars via a Killarney Collegiate Institute honour page list.

Currently, the volunteers are continuing to work on sourcing the information of some of the different war medals and who earned them from their service overseas.

In addition, Magwood referred to a group of monarch butterflies displayed in old cigar boxes — a souvenir from prisoners of war during the Second World War.

She explained guards who worked at the POW camps in the country would catch the butterflies, and prisoners would keep them in the cigar boxes — a small moment captured in history during a horrific time period.

Above all this, she is captivated by a large burgundy chair that once sat in the Manitoba Legislative Assembly in the 1890s.

Magwood explained the chair belonged to Finlay McNaughton Young, a farmer turned MLA who was elected to the Manitoba legislature in 1883 and 1886 for Turtle Mountain.

By 1888, Young was acclaimed in the new constituency of Killarney and was re-elected in 1892 and 1896. From 1896 to 1899, Young became the speaker of the legislative assembly.

Magwood said they are continuing to display new artifacts now that the redesigned space has more room.

“The things that we have, it just blows your mind when you really think about it,” she said with a smile.

The building’s initials stand for John Alexander Victor, and volunteers are excited to prepare for the museum’s 60th anniversary set for July 23. Featuring music, refreshments, an afternoon tea and addresses from town council, the public is invited to tour the museum throughout the day.

After only having a couple of afternoon tea settings last year, the museum volunteers are eager to host more events coming out of the pandemic.

“This is our history, this is the information that we have here and all the artifacts we have here shows how the town started and the pride that the people had in their town and municipality,” Magwood said when reflecting on the museum’s 60 years.

In recent years, she said having the museum restored and renovated could remind the public of forgotten values people used to have and why its important to remember the past.

“I’ve often asked the question, what would our World War I and World War II veterans think of the world as it is now,” she said.

“We have that history standing here.”

» jbernacki@brandonsun.com

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