Moving the museum

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Eleven-year-old Jamie Forbeck shows a picture of her dad, as seen in a Tiskilwa High School yearbook, to longtime Tiskilwa resident Lee Sidebottom, 83. The yearbook is part of the collections found at the Tiskilwa Historical Society’s Museum on Main. (Photo contributed)

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TISKILWA — Members of the Tiskilwa Historical Society are preparing to relocate its museum one block east from its current Main Street site.

In order to pack, move and set up new displays, the Museum on Main has to break its “Iron Men and Women” record of being open 186 consecutive Saturdays since Pow Wow Days in 2006, according to Cecille Gerber, chairman of the Tiskilwa Historical Society (THS). The museum will be closed beginning Saturday and re-open on March 20.

In preparation for the move, the THS will hold a “packing party”on Monday at the current Museum on Main to box and label the 2,000 plus items in its collection. Local members are asked to stop by the current museum to help for an hour or two between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. A pizza lunch from Giovanni’s will be served.

On Feb. 13, the Tiskilwa Community Association will re-locate the museum’s collection to its new home a few hundred yards down Main Street, in the United Methodist Church building. To help with the arrangement of the museum’s military, musical and Native American displays, the Johnson Delivery Service has already moved the two glass showcases and the piano to the new site, Gerber said.

The THS will host a grand opening at the new museum site on the first day of spring, March 20.

For more information on the museum or to help with the move, people may call Dorothy Ary at (815) 646-4161. The THS’ general meeting for February will be Monday’s packing party, Gerber said.

The completed transfer of the Tiskilwa Methodist Church building to the THS was announced in early January to the public. On Dec. 23, the Tiskilwa Community Church and the Illinois Great Rivers Conference of the United Methodist Church deeded the 1855 church building to the THS.

In an earlier interview, Gerber said the THS will use the church’s ground-level fellowship hall and Sunday school room for its museum collections. The sanctuary, which is stately and historical with its stained glass windows, will be kept as is, Gerber said.

"The Methodist Church building is near and dear to many people’s hearts, and we will maintain the building in a respectful way,” Gerber said.

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