Wax Museum focuses on Family History

In many instances, the students in Delmer Henry's Malta Middle School history class had never met the family member they were portraying at last week's Wax Museum at the Phillips County Museum, but Giona Lamb went right to the source for the inspiration of her impersonation.

"I went and talked to him about things and he is pretty awesome," Giona said prior to taking the stage. "Mr. Henry let me do someone who is alive, and I thought it was a good idea.

Great-grandpa George - longtime owner of Malta's R&G Quality Feeds - celebrated his 93rd birthday last Valentine's Day and he and wife Stella have been married for 73 years. Giona said that in her talks with her great-grandfather, she learned many things including some of the chores he used to do on the farm in his youth and about the time he attended a country dance and met his would-be wife.

"That was neat to learn about," she said. "The most fun part of this project was talking to my great-grandfather and being able to look at the old pictures of him and great-grandma."

Nearly 30 MMS students - dressed in period-accurate garb depending on the family member they were portraying - played to an audience of over 80 last Thursday in the second-annual Wax Museum put on by Henry's class. Each student put together a sandwich board with information and photo of the family member they chose to learn about and each stood behind an "on button" which when stepped on by an audience member, woke the Phillips County family member from slumber and started the person's spiel.

Names from the past on display during the day included Mavis Ruth Ellsworth-Johannesen, Delmar Demarais, Scott Lindgren, Doris Fahlgren, Charles Welch, Ella Olsen, Peter Boonstra, Linda Giblette, Sonny Oxarart, Magdalia Ware, and Russell "Bud" Young.

"He was my grandfather," Ryder Raymond said of Bud Young. "I never got to meet him, but the most interesting things I think I learned about him was he had a pretty cool job working with horses; he had about 200 horses."

Raymond said his favorite part of the project was getting his board decorated. Jo'Vahn Velasquez, the granddaughter of Magdalia Ware, said that she knew very little of her grandmother prior to this year's project.

"But I learned where she was born, what she liked to do as a child and how she was as a mother," Velasquez said. "I feel closer to her now and my dad (Rodney Velasquez) said she was a neat lady and a strict mother."

Bradley Brown played the part of his grandfather, Steve Brown, who Bradley said he never got to meet.

"He passed away on January 3, 2001, and I was born in 2005," Bradley said. "I learned that he was a farmer and that he worked on the Hoover Dam for a year. He was a foreman for Brown Company for 27 years and ranched for himself for another 35 years."

Brown said he learned about his grandfather through talking with his family and said he enjoyed the Wax Museum project, for the most part.

"I am a little nervous right now, but I will be okay," he said.