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A building, yes, but not yet a museum

Naivete seems to be my shortfall.

It began with an announcement in a July 2017 Tribune Chronicle newspaper article that the Howland Township trustees were donating the Sloas farm to the Howland Historical Society, provided they wanted it for a museum. The property consists of a house, a garage, a barn and 120 acres of grass, forest and wetlands.

Since the Society’s chartering in 1988 and before back to 1976, various Howland-minded individuals such as myself have sought a museum and physical home for a historical community museum.

With the Howland Township trustees’ offer came an immediate “yes” to accept what long had been sought as a Society home.

The transition time was set as Nov. 1, 2017. The excitement increased as the time drew near that a museum home could finally become a physical reality.

Now the reality hits that although the Society now has a home for a museum, a museum can’t be allowed to open at this time to the public at large.

Limited members only can be allowed, with restrictions, to have any home accessibility until various terms are met.

Items of red tape inspections, handicapped accessibility, permits, rules and regulations must and have yet to be met with various levels of government agencies.

The hope of moving accumulated Society inventory from the basement of the township administration building into an open museum in November has now come and gone. Now a museum opening is rapidly inching toward a 2018 “sometime” as an actual reality of opening to the Howland public as their museum.

I can only say to you as a reader of this public newspaper, don’t relieve yourself of anything that you can contribute to your future museum. Your museum, whatever the timeline for its eventual opening, will need your help with physical items to become donations for viewing.

Also, all current Society memberships expire on Dec. 31, 2017, and new memberships are being solicited. So let’s start 2018 off right by being Howland Historical Society members and by finding items for donations that can be made to your soon-to-be museum.

Contact Warner Taiclet, vice president of the Howland Historical Society, at 330-856-1115.

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