HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US…WE’RE 50 YEARS OLD!                                                        By Marlene Cook

Part One of Four

The year was 1976 – a bicentennial year.  Julia Gault, a biology teacher at

TF South High School, had been forced to retire at age 65.  She fought it, and won at the appeals court level.  She eventually retired when she was ready, but she was not ready to quit living her life to its fullest.

The Lansing Bicentennial committee was making celebration plans and Julia decided she’d get involved and attended a meeting.  When they asked for suggestion, she opened her mouth and found herself Chair of the Heritage Committee.

She had some ideas and spoke to history teacher, Jim Kijewski, about them.  She told him of her desire to form a historical society and museum.  He thought it was such a good idea that he immediately signed up and became the first charter member of the new Lansing Historical Society, even before Julie, the founder.  (He is still a member as is his wife, Joanne).

As an offshoot of the Heritage Project, the Lansing Historical Society was chartered on July 19, 1976, with 75 charter members.  Putting their heads together, they began planning the future, looking back.

Next:  getting items to show and a place to show them.  See Part Two in the next issue of the Lansing Historical Society newsletter.

Part Two of Four

Part One recap:  Julia Gault and Jim Kijewski, both teachers at TF South, founded the Lansing Historical Society.  It was chartered on July 9, 1976 with 75 members.  But they had no items to show or a place to show them.

Starting from scratch was going to be a mammoth undertaking.  Gault and her committee did a lot of negotiating before they convinced the First National Bank of Lansing to get on the bandwagon.  The bank finally offered the use of a vacant room during the bicentennial celebration.

Now that they had Room 206 for displays, they had to acquire historical items to display.  The 65 members began going door-to-door begging for artifacts either as a donation or a loan.  They collected nearly 200 items to make a decent display.

It went so well, the bank allowed them to occupy that second-floor room for another 18 months.  But the bank got a paying tenant for the space and the museum had to close.  The bank did generously provide them with limited storage space, but the society was forced to return the overflow of artifacts to their rightful owners.

Then the owners of the Fennema-DeYoung Cut Stone Company saw an opportunity to have the 100-year-old Christian Schultz homestead removed from their property.  They offered it to the Historical Society with the stipulation they would have to move it.  It sounded good at first, but the society was still new to have acquired enough money to take on such a project.  But it worked out for the best anyways.  The building was found to be structurally unsound and had to be torn down.

By June, 1979, the bank needed their storage space and the society was homeless.  Calvin Coolidge School came to the rescue by offering them a vacant room in which to store their bounty.  Three years later the society had more than 250 items, but still had no place to display them.

Next:  It took a whole lot of ingenuity to raise enough funds to realize their dream to reopen a museum.

See Part Three in the next issue of Lansing Historical Society newsletter.