By Rhonda Akey
Early in 2012, our Museum Specialist, Audrey Caryi, mentioned a pending donation of a light bulb to me a few times before the donation actually arrived. Every time she mentioned the donation, she specifically stated that the light bulb was made in 1918. Now, I’ve grown up with light bulbs my entire life, but never have I seen one with a date on it. So I was curious how Audrey knew that, in fact, this light bulb was produced in 1918. Was it a particular design only used in that year? Or maybe light bulbs had some sort of stamp that could identify the year they were produced? At any rate, I shrugged off my curiosity, comforted by the knowledge that all would be revealed when it was donated.
Finally, the day arrived when I came in one morning to find our first accession of the 2012 sitting on my desk. The bulb was securely packaged in a shoe box, padded by tissue and came with a note from the donor. I picked up the letter and read in sullen shock the following story supplied by the donor:
“…On May 15, 1918, the light in the kitchen burned out and my grandfather stood on a chair to remove the burned bulb and replace it with a new one. There was a defect in the wiring. He was electrocuted and died still holding the new bulb.
The light bulb passed to my father and, after his death, to me. Even though we knew it was not this bulb that had caused my grandfather’s death, superstition ruled. It wasn’t until the late 1960’s that, for the first time in fifty years, the bulb was tested. To everyone’s surprise it still worked.”
To say I was gob smacked after reading the above story would be an understatement- and maybe a bit creeped out too. This was not what I expected for an explanation on how to identify a 1918 light bulb! At any rate, there written in this profound letter, was my answer to the dating of this light bulb.
What I would eventually come to realize is that many of our artifacts have a reason they have been kept for so long. Sometimes they were simply a part of someone’s household that never made it to the discard pile. Other artifacts, like our now infamous light bulb, were kept for very personal reasons.
I have since found other examples in our collection. A child’s outfit and toy that was lovingly tucked away after a mother lost her young child. A near-perfect wool blanket that came from the trousseau of a donor’s great aunt who had sadly remained a spinster due to personal family circumstances and after the great aunt’s passing, the trousseau was divided between the young girls in the family.
Sadly, these personal stories are rarely shared in our Museum setting. The artifacts are accepted for the story that they represent in the history of Peterborough County, as defined by our Museum’s mandate. Nonetheless, I hope that sharing this story may make you stop and think about the objects you see on display the next time you visit a museum. If they could tell their own story, what amazing history would those objects reveal?
