The Wallaceburg and District Museum is set to remain closed to the public for the foreseeable future, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dee Gallerno, an executive member with the Museum and the Historical Society Board, provided an update to the Sydenham Current “during this dreaded COVID time of all of our lives.
“Currently the Museum is still closed to the public and we have laid off our curator and social media person until we re-open, perhaps in the New Year,” Gallerno said, adding they have kept their office administrator on for two days a week to keep the business end running smoothly.
“If we only had a crystal ball to let us know when it will be more feasible to re-open to the public… so for now, that date is open ended,” she said.
Gallerno added the Museum is “very disappointed” to not have their traditional “Haunted House” this year.
“That is one of our main fundraisers,” Gallerno said, adding that the ‘Visit with Santa’ event in December is in serious doubt as well.
“We know a lot of families will be disappointed, but for COVID safety as well as the numbers of people allowed in the Museum at one time, as put forward by the Ontario Government, it is impossible for us to hold these functions.”
Gallerno said the Museum has all of the COVID requirements for a business in place for when they do re-open.
“In the mean time, our Museum family of a few dedicated volunteers are still working behind the lines to keep our artifacts clean, safe, itemized, etc. That’s why the public sometimes see people coming and going at the Museum with our doors locked.”
Gallerno said someone recently broke into their pole barn and stole a laptop computer, which contained numerous information about their glass collection.
“We have now installed a better alarm system that will definitely deter anything like that from happening again, we hope,” she said.
“You know, it wasn’t the monetary value of the computer, it was all the long hours logging and typing in all of the Glass Factories information on that laptop, but thankfully we were able to at least retrieve the information from a backed up source.”
More details on the break-in can be read, here.
Gallero said the motto at the Wallaceburg Museum is ‘Preserving History For The Generations To Come.’
“Which all of us volunteers and staff live by, so be assured that we will faithfully continue to do just that,” Gallerno said.
“We will inform you when we are able to safely re-open to the public as soon as we can.”
The Wallaceburg & District Historical Society is also looking for new members to add to their Board of Directors.
If anyone has an interest in local history and are willing to volunteer a few hours a week/month, call 519-627-8962 or email businessadmin@wallaceburgmuseum.ca for details.
You can also follow the Museum on Facebook, here.
