Floyd County Museum approaches the end of an era

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Times change. That’s why there are history museums.

When Mary Ann Townsend works her last day as director of the Floyd County Historical Museum in Charles City on March 31, it will be the end of an era.

“I grew up loving history, so I was a good fit here, but more than that, I love the people I’ve met here,” Townsend said. “There are so many friends we’ve met throughout the world, people that we’ve worked with in the community — the people have been the most fun part of this.”

Townsend became director of the Floyd County Museum in 2001, after starting as a volunteer there back in 1979. She moved from volunteer to employee in 1985 and held a number of positions before being named director.

Retiring with Townsend is the museum’s current collections technician, Elaine Mead, who has been working at the museum for about 15 years.

“The Floyd County Historical Society board is going to greatly miss Mary Ann and Elaine,” said Tony Lessin, board president. “The museum as it stands today would not be possible without their dedication.”

A retirement party and meet and greet will be held at the museum on March 28 from 1-4 p.m.

“To many, Mary Ann is the face of the museum, and Elaine has been integral to the inner workings of many things at the museum,” Lessin said. “Between the two of them, there are over five decades of experience and devotion. We look forward to their continued participation in the museum. The void they leave behind is great.”

The party will serve as a salute to the departing Townsend and Mead, as well as a welcome for the museum’s new director, Jennifer Thiele.

“We look forward to a promising future with our new director, Jennifer,” Lessin said. “Jennifer will be standing on the shoulders of giants, and we believe that she is prepared to rise to the challenge. Her drive, ability to learn and previous experiences are second to none.”

Thiele — who worked in a museum on the north Oregon coast, where she was a historian and author — has been volunteering at the local museum and will work with Townsend and Mead through March before assuming her new job on April 1.

“I’m really learning from Elaine and Mary Ann, and I’m really grateful for the month-plus that I get to shadow them and learn from their experience,” said Thiele, who added that she will utilize Townsend and Mead in the future as volunteers and bring them back for museum functions whenever she can.

The Floyd County Museum in Charles City is one of the Midwest’s largest rural county museums, with more than 50,000 artifacts depicting early and recent prairie life, both agricultural and industrial. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the museum opened its climate-controlled exhibit area in 1999, featuring historic farm tractors, implements and tools of the last century.

Townsend, who grew up in Forest City and moved to Charles City in 1966, became a volunteer just as the museum was moving from downtown Charles City to its current location in the former Salsbury Laboratories building at 500 Gilbert St.

“I helped them pack up, downtown, when it was at the old Legel Drug Store building, and move it over here,” said Townsend. “Everybody was a volunteer for a long time here. It took years to get things moved from downtown to here and catalogued out.”

Townsend attributes the museum’s success to the fact that Charles City is a historical locale for tractors.

“You always want to have a hook to bring people in, and we were blessed with a hook right off the bat,” Townsend said. “They built tractors here in Charles City, and I’d guess that 90 percent of the people who come here come because we built tractors.”

Charles City is the birthplace of the gasoline-driven tractor, and the museum displays several models manufactured here, including Hart-Parr, Oliver and White. Townsend called that a “big blessing” for the museum.

“Without that, we wouldn’t be open five days a week year round,” she said. “We’d be back where we started, Thursday and Friday afternoons, and Saturday and Sunday afternoons during the summer months.”

Townsend said she’s “worn all the hats” at the museum over the years, and so has Mead, who first worked the front desk and then became a collection technician.

“I’m officially in charge when someone comes in to donate an item,” Mead said. “We decide if we want it, then I take the item, give it a number, give it a proper home.”

Mead also sometimes works front desk, cleans, puts together displays and whatever else needs to be done.

“We all just kind of interchangeably do things,” she said.

Mead was born and raised in Charles City, and graduated from high school here. Townsend said that the fact that Mead is from Charles City and had a good knowledge of the community and the families here has been a big help to her.

After moving away from Charles City to teach, Mead returned when her husband retired so she could be closer to family. She said that one day, driving past the museum, she thought it looked like it would be a fun place to work.

“I have dearly loved this job,” Mead said. “It’s a fun job, it really is.”

Exhibits at the museum include a turn-of-the-century drug store and a country school classroom. There is also a gift shop area for books related to local history, tractor toys, T-shirts and other gift ideas.

“We always want people in the museum, because we want to show it off,” Townsend said. “When we got to have the museum’s 50th birthday party, that was a big deal. We had a lot of people in. It wasn’t many years after that when we had the anniversary for the tornado, which brought a lot of people through here. So that’s always a lot of fun, to have those big events like that.

“If we can get people to come into the building, we can sell it,” she said. “They love it when they come in.”

Townsend said that retirement for her means finishing up personal projects and spending time with her family. She has a daughter who lives in Mason City, a son in Humboldt, and several grandchildren.

“It’s time. We need new blood,” she said. “I’ve just reached a point where it’s like, I don’t want to get up on another Monday morning and come to work in the dark and through the snow and the ice.”

Mead, who has twin sons who are now 25 years old, also said “it’s time” to retire.

“I always said I didn’t want to work past 70 years old, and I’m going to be 70 in September,” she said.

So the next era begins with Thiele, who was born in Mason City, grew up in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, graduated from college in Oregon and attended grad school there. In addition to her experience as an author and historian, Thiele was also a board president of the Garibaldi Maritime Museum.

“I was ready to take that step to be a director, so I started looking around the Midwest, closer to family,” she said. “I really want to put down roots in Charles City. I want to make a good impact here and be part of the community’s growth and the museum’s growth.”