Apologies for the late update since this was technically due yesterday. However just keeping on track with my second day on the job. Yesterday was definitely more of an independent experience. Christine was working on an exhibit for the museum so I knew that I would be doing a lot more solo work. She of course was still available if I had any questions and she was only a few steps away but that didn't mean I wasn't a bit nervous to work a full day by myself. I just really didn't want to mess up or let anyone down. Once I got into the rhythm of looking through a few boxes I was able to work faster and easily recognizing the old items I was looking at, and what type of importance they held to both the Maitland Historical Museum, the Telephone Museum and the Waterhouse Museum which is also under Christine's care and one of the branches of the Art and History Museums of Maitland.
Just a little background on the Waterhouse Museum so as not to confuse anyone, it is the former home of pioneer settler and builder William H. Waterhouse. The Waterhouse family were a prominent bunch in the early days of Maitland and the home is an impressive view of Florida living (okay so rich Florida living) during the Victorian period.
I'd also like to give a little run through of the Telephone Museum and the Maitland Historical Museum (something I should have done on my first post but I'll just give a quick run through now). The Telephone Museum displays the early years of telephone technology and more specifically early telephone service in Central Florida and Maitland. The museum also includes the local history of the Winter Park Telephone Company.
The Maitland Historical Museum houses some of the phones from the Telephone Museum and highlights some of the pioneer families of Maitland which includes the Galloway family, the Waterhouse family and the legacy of Andre Smith. Here you can find different stages of what life was like in Maitland and Central Florida as well as housing the research library.
Pretty sure I've covered everything so back to my internship, Christine and I came up with a shorter way of getting through the boxes quickly without having to write down too much detail about every single piece within a box, which I'm sure I talked about in my first post. So with that in mind, I used this same method while taking inventory of all the boxes on the second side of the first bookshelf (also known as Case 2). Christine came up with a "priority scale" of 1-5, 1 being very important and 5 being something that isn't as important and considered a common item. While all of the items in the museum are stored within boxes, it can be a little difficult to find specific objects or documents and I wasn't always sure what I was going to find when I opened a box. Some moments were more frustrating than others but I understood no matter what I had to get through as many boxes as I possibly could. I'm proud to say that I got through 5 1/2 shelves located on Case 2 all by myself. Hopefully next Tuesday I can be even more productive and be one step closer to finishing up my inventory so I can begin to put together a collection or two.
Also just a small story but the house where the Maitland Historical Museum is in is a bit creepy since the house is very old. Connected to the research library is a small room/closet/bathroom closed off by some curtains and unless you turn the light on in there it is very dark even with the light of the research library on. Yeah well I was trying hard to be brave and not let my imagination get the best of me as I stood next to said room with Christine having a conversation of how far I had gotten, when I began hearing noises. Honestly the sound resembled small pebbles being thrown or small objects being moved. I stopped mid-conversation and just stared at whatever I thought was going to come after Christine and I because in my head I swore the ghost of whoever used to live there was going to start throwing enough pebbles at us to kill us both! Turned out that part of the house has some kind of thin roofing material and it was just rain. Christine thought it was hilarious, I saw my life flash before my eyes. But it doesn't matter I'm totally gonna tell people how I faced off with a ghost and didn't die.
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