Donor Spotlight – Dan Maier
Why do you support the Geneva History Museum?
I have a keen interest in American history and I was raised in Geneva. My involvement with the museum started after I attended a program about the State Girls School. A friend in high school dated the assistant superintendent’s daughter. When we double-dated, I would get cleared to go inside the property. So, I was familiar with the school, but I learned so much about the history behind it.
By volunteering at the museum, I get to look at and research old photos and slides and read old newspapers, some as far back as the 1850. I learn something new about Geneva’s history each day, and that’s exciting.
What is one of your favorite Geneva stories?
Both of my favorite stories about living in Geneva are weather related. A tornado swept through the east side of Geneva destroying a few homes in the Ridgewood and Fieldbrook subdivisions where my brother and I had a paper route. In order to do the route after the tornado went through, we had to go through a police checkpoint. Being two curious 12 year-olds, we wanted to see the damage. I purposely missed a few houses so my brother could go see the damage too.
The other story is about the blizzard of 1967. No one could drive a car for quite a while because the plows were busy clearing the main streets. So my dad, brother and I took our sled and hiked to Frank’s food store at the corner of East Side Drive and State Street. When we got to the store, there was barely any food left on the shelves but, we got what we needed and took the long hike back home. We also climbed a snow drift to the roof of our house and jumped off into another drift. What fun!
Share a fun experience you have had with GHM.
One of the most fun experiences I’ve had at the museum, and one of the hardest, was when the staff and several volunteers moved the entire collection from the basement of the museum to the ground floor so we could install a new shelving system. To complicate things further, we did this during the Covid pandemic. Every time we came to the museum, we had to have our temperature taken, sign in, mask up and put on latex gloves. I worked on moving the acid-free boxes in the basement to the first-floor gallery. The main concern was keeping them in numerical order to make it easier to put them back. We moved the boxes and then the old shelves. The shelves were a little unsteady because we couldn’t bolt them to the floor. So, we figured we could just wire them together and that would be enough support. Boy were we wrong. One of the shelves started wobbling and that started the chain reaction. Suddenly, the majority of the boxes hit the floor and made quite a mess. Luckily, the boxes stayed intact when they hit the floor and we were able to quickly clean up.