Surprises in Storage at the Boone County Museum

By Anne Eickstadt

LEAH BUSH PHOTOS Belvidere Daily Republican
Apothecary Kit from the 1870’s

Editor

The Boone County Museum of History hosted a ‘Surprises in Storage’ program for Growth Dimensions’ monthly Breakfast Before Business event. The first surprise that attendees had on Thursday, March 29, was that this ‘breakfast’ was actually a lunch.

Director Anna Pivoras and Collections Manager Leah Bush displayed a number of items they have been discovering.

“Anna and I started this journey as a way to get a full inventory on our entire collection,” said Leah Bush. “Although we’ve had a physical location for 50 years, we have used off-site storage locations several times in the past.

“In 2013, our two main buildings were combined and we now have our entire collection on site in storage. We are now working daily on updating our inventory and doing more in-depth research on the items we uncover.”

Here are some of their favorites:

“We found an Apothecary Kit from the 1870’s. Almost all the vials still contain the original medicine so we have been very careful handling it, but are very excited about coming across it. The medicine is in pill form in the vials because doctors during this era would take different medicine pills and grind them up together, creating a custom prescription.

“Another artifact is a wedding dress from the early 1900’s during the Edwardian Era. We are in the process of creating custom

Edwardian Era wedding dress

mannequins in-house for the large array of Victorian clothes we have come across. Many of the waist sizes are an average of 18 inches and do not fit store-bought mannequins.

“This object which we discovered is a 1920’s Radioptican Postcard Projector. The radioptican was designed to reflect light off a post card through a focusing lens and onto a wall. They only work if used in…

For complete article, pick up the April 8 Belvidere Daily Republican.