.
Welcome, Maya Giuliani. Thanks for joining us here this morning. Hi, thanks for having me.
The guy that goes all around those barrels on Victory Avenue, right? Yeah, made it okay.
I'm telling people, if they put any more blockades, I'll have to parachute in here.
And get a gondola out air balloon to get us out every day. Maya is the marketing director for the Racine Heritage Museum.
If you have been there, you're missing a jewel in this city, but it's actually for the whole county.
Yes.
But it's located in Racine right there on Main Street at the corner of Sixth and Main.
And I've been through that many, many times.
It's either exhibited there. You wouldn't even believe or in there, including a mummy.
Where did they get that mummy from? It's a real mummy, right?
It's a real mummy here from Egypt. Yeah, where did you get? How did you get that?
So an eBay. I mean, what do you buy in mummy? One of the Horlick individuals of Horlick-Multid Milk brought it back from an Egyptology excursion.
Wow. And he gave it to you guys.
Eventually.
You know, I go in there and they see him in the glass case. I don't know if it's a man or woman. I know what it was.
So that was actually kind of controversial. We thought that the mummy was a woman for many, many years.
And then in the 80s, we took him up to Milwaukee Public Museum and got him X-ray.
Oh, wait, that's right. You actually have the X-rays there, too.
Yes, you can come and take a look at him. We found out that he's a boy. His name is Malti.
Obviously, he didn't have a birth certificate. I think he has a call on that.
Yeah.
Yeah. And every time I go in there, I say, I'm going to say, I have that.
So I think it's a finger move.
Hold on a second. No, I didn't. Wait a second. Something moved.
You also have a really neat exhibit.
If you've seen the movie of League of Their Own, you'll know about the woman's baseball league they had during World War II.
And in there, you have the Racine Bell's uniforms, pictures and everything.
Yes, right there in our sports hall of fame.
And we induct new athletes into our sports hall of fame every single year.
And you can come see a new item.
How do you get that stuff?
We talked to the athletes. They loan it to us. So right now we have things on display from five athletes, including Chris Marigos.
That's a full-time job to keep loading up stuff in this museum.
It keeps us busy.
Now, when you move it, exhibit out. And if you rotate them, I assume occasionally, what do you store them?
You don't get rid of them. See, I'm a store them somewhere.
So we have three different storage facilities around the county.
And one of them is inside the museum. So deep in the basement, under all of the cool stuff you see,
we have storage areas where there is so much more than you could possibly imagine.
You can have that old car exhibit.
So that's been rotated out.
Oh, it's out there now.
Yeah, but we bring some of our cars in our collection out to the county fair every year.
So you can come visit us this summer there.
I was in Murdo, South Dakota. You know what that is?
No.
Nobody knows where it is.
Okay, so I'm on a road trip out to somewhere.
And we stop in Murdo, South Dakota.
And there's an auto museum in the middle of nowhere.
But my wife worked with somebody at a sentient hospital who's related to the owner of that thing.
So we stopped in there.
And there are acres and acres and acres and acres and acres of cars, including a horrible car.
I think I think it's a horrible.
I'm trying to remember who it was.
Are you think, are you thinking case? Are you thinking Mitchell?
No, it's case. It's case, case.
I knew it wasn't.
It's a case car.
And it's in pretty good condition.
It's laying in a barn.
And you know, with a bunch of other cars, then they have a case.
And you can see it on the grill and this old looks like a Model T.
And they said, this car doesn't ride here because you didn't have a case car, did you?
We have a case car.
Do you have a case car?
Yes.
We'll take it to the county fair.
It's from the 1920s.
The only manufactured in the 1920s.
Yeah.
And this particular model was designed for golfers.
So it has a special section for you to store your golf gloves in it.
The kind of thing is it, what?
Case and Mitchell, those were the two made here.
Those were the two major ones.
Yeah, the case thing.
Because I know it wasn't a Mitchell.
And so you find these things.
And I was about to quick get over here.
We didn't touch rock.
We got it.
We got a case car over here.
Well, that's neat.
But you are here to talk about the renovation of an old school house.
Yeah. So we're not renovating it.
No.
You're inviting everyone to come visit.
And they can renovate it.
No.
They can come help us garden for sure.
Some little kid was chewing gum there.
It's renovated.
Okay.
So the school house is in Caledonia.
Yes.
Is it on the same plot where the train depot was and stirred of it?
They moved it somewhere out there.
No.
Nope.
This is in the place that it was originally.
Oh, it's the original schoolhouse on the location.
Original schoolhouse on the location.
Wow.
And it's in Caledonia.
Where is it?
It's on Highway 31 in five mile road.
It's pretty easy yet there.
You cannot punch in an address.
You have to punch in the cross streets because it doesn't have an official one.
Oh, wow.
What years are from?
It's from 1888.
Whoa.
Wow.
I'm sure that not a lot of people went through that schoolhouse.
I mean...
Surprisingly, no.
It was actually built to be a Saturday schoolhouse for Bohemian children to learn cultural
and language.
Bohemian children.
Children from Bohemia.
Okay.
Now, I think technically the Czech Republic.
So they were learning, you know, cultural history.
The schoolhouse was built by their families for this Saturday school to be a place where
they learned cultural and language lessons.
Is it...
It must have been preserved sometime because 1888.
Do you think you would have fallen apart by now?
Yeah.
I am not sure what year it came under the stewardship of the museum, but we've been managing
it for quite a while and been inviting school children to come out for years and years and years.
How big is it?
Pretty small.
It's one room.
A room schoolhouse.
Yeah.
I had 970 people in my graduating class in high school.
We had 4,000 students in my high school and a given moment.
I couldn't read that school last.
So 1888.
I wonder what it was like back then.
Yeah.
It had to be pretty rural up there in California.
It definitely was.
Yes.
And I mean, it's still pretty rural today.
Yeah.
But not like that.
Not like that.
So students when coming on Saturdays, they would learn at Blackboards.
There's a wood burning stove inside of the school to keep it warm.
They played recess games in the school yard.
They had outhouses, which are still functional today.
Yeah.
We call them porta-potties.
What year did it cease being a schoolhouse there?
I'm not sure.
Can't give you that information, for sure.
2012.
So it's just there for tourism now, too.
It's there for tourism and it's there for education.
So most students in Racine, the schools around the county come to our schoolhouse
in third or second grade and learn what school was like historically.
So it's really there to kind of be an iconic field trip location.
And our open house is the only time that the general public can come and visit in the year.
We're talking to Maya Giuliani.
She is the marketing director for the Racine Heritage Museum.
And there is a schoolhouse, an old schoolhouse from 1888 that you'll get to see.
And what's the date of the open house, by the way?
The date of the open house is Saturday, May 2nd.
Saturday, May, almost like coming up like soon.
This Saturday come now.
This Saturday.
What are the hours?
It is 10 to 4.
And the four.
Okay, that's pretty good.
All day long.
Rainer shine.
Rainer shine.
The schoolhouse doesn't leak, doesn't it?
Not that I know of.
Now, how many people can you fit in there in an open house?
I wouldn't put more than 30 in there, but we have a beautiful lawn where there will be activities.
I want to be shoulder to shoulder with people like Sardines and a can where somebody falls.
They just stand up because they do crap.
So 30 people can fit in there.
30 people can fit in there comfortably.
I'm not sure how many desks we have in there, but you can sit down at a very small desk for children.
What's your desk in there?
What's in there?
Desks, blackboards, a stove.
Some of the books that originally came.
Really?
Yeah.
You can come see some pretty cool stuff.
You know, it's amazing.
From 1888, nobody decided to knock it down.
Because things are knocked down all the time.
And then you look back and say, why did they knock that down?
It was so historic.
But people do it.
Because at the time, it doesn't seem historic.
So, it's in the middle of a farm fielder.
It's honestly right on the corner of the road.
It's tucked away just a little bit.
I think it is sheer luck that we've gotten to hold on to this piece of recene history.
Yeah, that's a prime real estate.
Yeah.
We can put another McDonald's there in that corner and knock down this schoolhouse.
I'm going to look it up on Google Maps.
Because it's got to be on there.
I think it might be.
Well, it's got to be.
It would have to be.
Yeah, if it's just an aerial shot.
I'm going to go to Google from 1890.
And we'll see if it's on there.
Give me the Google map.
You took an 1890.
You see if it's there.
Well, that's just fantastic.
All right.
That's May 2nd.
This Saturday, 10 to 4.
Yes.
And you just parking there, I assume?
You can park on the road.
There's kind of a lot of space over toward the farm fields.
Okay.
And we'll have activities in the yard for kids, families, any one of all ages.
That sounds like I know what that date sounded familiar to me.
We have the Wisconsin Broadcast Association Awards this Saturday.
I said, May 2nd, why does that ring a bell for me?
I just figured that out.
Well, that's just great.
Now, we'll talk about some of the events that are coming up at the Recene Heritage Museum.
We have an exhibit coming out soon called Workers, Wax and Weddings.
It is kind of a clothing focused exhibit about women's war uniforms, clothing, wedding dresses,
the textile history of Recene.
That's coming up in the fall.
We'll have our Sports Hall induction ceremony.
And we'll celebrate a whole new class of athletes who changed the fabric of our city.
And that's great because I've been there and I've seen the sports hallway you got there with the exhibit.
That's great.
Now, when you would duck somebody in, you're still alive sometimes, right?
Sometimes, often.
Do they come down?
Usually.
Oh, that's great.
So we throw a big dinner.
They come and speak.
They meet a lot of high school athletes since we award high school athletes as well.
And it's, you know, just a cool special time to see all of these people happy to see each other.
Well, that's great.
And we are going to have something at the Recene Heritage Museum because on December 6th, this radio station turns 100 years old.
And we have going to have some artifact today.
We actually have in our lobby the original license issued by not the Federal Communications Commission,
whatever it was before it was called the FCC.
We actually have that in our lobby.
We'll give it to you put on display.
We actually have a picture in the lobby too of Eleanor Roosevelt in front of our microphone.
She was a wingsbread and somebody took a picture of her right in front of beautiful picture.
I'll show you when you're on your way out.
And see we get a copy of that and see we can put that in there that's Eleanor Roosevelt in front of the WRJN.
And it's not Photoshopped.
Now everybody thinks everything is Photoshopped or AI.
It's not. It's real.
So we'll put that there as well.
Well, that's great.
So give a little history of you.
How do you had you wind up at the Recene Heritage Museum?
I kind of stumbled into it right after college.
Do you have an interest in this kind of stuff?
I always wanted to work in museums.
And it is kind of everything I thought it would be.
It's the coolest job to have.
When I was growing I grew up in New York.
And every year we went to one of three museums.
We went to the Museum of Natural History.
The New York Art Museum.
And there was a third museum we used to go to there.
It wasn't as big.
But the Museum of Natural History there right on Central Park West.
It was huge.
I mean, you could not go through that thing in a day.
It was just, it was magnificent to go through.
And I grew up at the museum.
And we were talking before we went on the air.
It has to be creepy to be a night.
What do they watch?
And one of these museums.
Especially if the museums have like exhibits with dinosaurs
and things like that.
Cool.
I saw something move.
Yeah.
They're so big.
Wait, that case was closed.
Why is it open now?
It can get just a little bit spooky when you're there by yourself.
Are you building creaks?
Oh, yeah.
Maybe not.
Late.
But I've worked late before.
During a thunderstorm.
I'm getting goosebumps.
During a thunderstorm, huh?
During that building, all of a sudden, lights go out.
We have definitely had power outages every once in a while.
Old building, downtown.
You never know.
Now, you're building itself with a, that's kind of historic in its own.
Yes, yeah.
It was originally a Carnegie library.
We moved in in the early 60s.
And it is still pretty original.
And you know, the new library is behind us over on the lake there.
So it hasn't gone far.
Well, that used to be the Racine Public Library at one time.
Yep.
Oh, why didn't know that?
Yep.
It was built during the craze of building Carnegie libraries.
And, you know, there aren't so many of those left.
And you can come see our building, which is historical in itself.
The El Carnegie.
The Carnegie Hall.
And also wrote the book of how to win friends and influence people.
Interesting guy.
Some of you guys should probably read.
That's good.
Okay.
Quick review here.
Now, the reason you're here today is you are looking at the preserved historical building.
You've seen Heritage Museum celebrating the annual eight.
It's an annual thing, huh?
Yes, every year.
1888 Bohemian Schoolhouse, open house.
And that's, um, give us a address again.
Give us the date to the times.
That is at highway 31 and five mile road.
Saturday, May 2nd from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Come hang out.
We'll have activities for kids.
They'll learn how to play stick hoop and other old timey recess games.
We are now stick hoop.
Is that where you roll the whole of hoop thing and with a stick?
It sure is.
How do I know that?
I'm not that old.
I think it's what we think of when we think of old time recess.
Yeah, they hit the hoop and it moves when they do it with the stick.
Yeah.
How do I know this?
This is scary.
So, um, not haunted, is it?
Not that I know of.
Hmm.
Anything from 1888.
It's got to be haunted.
I just think about what were seen was light back then.
Caledon.
Was it called Caledon?
You're back in 1888?
I'm not even sure.
I think so.
Was it?
We there.
It's a book we took out of the library.
Um, and they had to get it from another library.
And it's, it's the history of recene and it goes back whatever all the way to 1975.
And my house was not in recene back then.
Recene crept up slowly from downtown and kept going up and up and up.
There wasn't even a town name back in the 1800s because my house is over 100 years old.
I don't know where it was.
The house next door to me was built in the 1880s.
And I don't know what it was called back then, but it wasn't recene.
And you look at these books and it's kind of creepy.
There's also books you can look at.
It tells you who used to, you know, live in your house at the library.
You're going to wear white gloves to handle with those type of books.
And back then they used to list your profession in the telephone directory or a directory,
whatever it was.
And mine was found by a Lake Michigan sea captain.
He built the house in the early 1900s.
And every time we have to move a wall or take it out, I look for gold balloons.
Maybe there's something you left in it.
He just he kept all his stuff with kind of you walk around that house.
You say this captain back in 1900 was walking around my house or his house.
Yeah, it's kind of exciting to know folks come to our archive all the time to research what happened in their house.
You can do that.
You can do that.
You can come to our archive.
You can visit us and do your own research.
You can also hire us to do your research for you or you want.
We have a great archivist Liz Spade.
She manages our whole archive.
We have truly an incomprehensible amount of paper files.
Archivist.
I see I learned that word.
Archivist.
There was something else I was going to ask you about.
I can't remember what it is now.
It's a huge older memory starts the past.
That's why I write things down all the time.
Well, it was a pleasure having you in here.
Yeah.
Thank you so much for having me on.
Whenever you have a new exhibit or some rotate some stuff in.
Let us know what got rotated in when you took the cars out.
So that became right before the Lloyd.
So that was a Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit that we had on loan from some people in Illinois.
And then now it is upcoming our works in wax.
Worker's wax and weddings.
Many W's exhibit.
Eliteration.
There's a word I learned.
It's a goal.
I never used to have until now.
The Frank Lloyd Wright House.
There's one right a few blocks from you.
Right there on Main Street.
It's right on the lake.
And I've been through there.
And my head hits the ceiling when I was in there.
I said, I was short with these people when he built this place.
Because the ceiling's weren't high.
What's a pleasure having you in here?
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
And we're looking forward to having the WRGN.
What do they call that?
That's Centennial.
Centennial.
Centennial exhibit.
Yeah.
It's a hundred years old this December 6th.
I thank you guys for letting us do that first of all.
Well, thank you for offering us these pieces.
Yeah.
And I got to say, if you haven't been to the Racine Heritage Museum.
Right there on Main Street corner 6th and Main, you got to go in there.
Either bring your family in there and you will spend hours in there just walking around looking.
It's things you never thought about before.
And it's all in there preserved.
And what a jewel.
Thanks for taking care of it.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
When did the museum open up?
In the 60s.
Okay.
And when that old then, I thought it was...
Yeah.
So our Historical Society has existed for over a hundred years.
So our next anniversary will be our 150th.
And I think that is 20 something years from now.
Well, thank you, Maya.
Maya Giuliani, who is the marketing director for our Racine Heritage Museum right there on Main Street.
Stop it if you haven't done so already.
Okay. Thanks for coming in.
Thank you.