The Neville Blog

Syble interviewed for a teaching position with the Superintendent of Brown County Schools, Joe Donovan, in the 1950s. He knew instantly that she was destined to do more than teach kindergarten. Joe’s dream was to create a program for students with special needs, and he knew Syble was the one to do it. Syble’s special needs program started with one classroom and grew into its own school, named in her honor. Starting the program was not an easy task. At the time many students with special needs did not attend school. Syble went door to door to recruit students and meet with parents. She eventually became a leader in Special Needs Education. Syble advocated for her students and other children with special needs, as she believed they deserved the chance to receive an education and the opportunity to have days full of fun and creativity. Her dedication not only touched her students but also the teachers she worked with and mentored. Because of her work, the school is still open today. I...

200 years ago a cheerful holiday feast was held just across the street from the museum near Leicht Park at Fort Howard.   Once a fort officer, Col. McNeil (later commander of Fort Howard 1824-1825), found out how important it was to the French residents of the area to celebrate Christmas, he planned an elaborate party.   The officers invited the French, the Americans, and native people living in the area.   The 4’ o’clock dinner is said to have fed a hundred people.   The evening included a feast of fish, bear, and porcupine along with a dance that lasted late into the night.   An Invitation addressed to Mrs. Lawe for a ball at Fort Howard in 1820. A local land surveyor who attended the fort’s Christmas dinner/dance in 1823 describes the evening...    The hall was well filled… men and women, were attired in all the grades of dress, from the highest partisan down to the buck-skin coats, pants, petticoat, and moccasins of the aboriginals.   Ye...

Each year the museum puts together holiday displays from our collection of figurines that once decorated the windows at H.C. Prange Co. in downtown Green Bay. Dolls of Christmas Past are displayed in vignettes on our stage and Snow Babies play outside our gift shop.  One thing you may have noticed in recent years is that the museum decided not to have our dolls move.  After extensive review of the dolls’ conditions the decision as made to not plug them in for a variety of reasons.  As with all our exhibits, when they are completed we inventory and do condition reports before returning the artifacts back to storage. After Holiday Memories in 2016, we did an extensive condition report of the artifacts. In looking closely we discovered evidence of stress. Piles of rust at the feet of some of the figures are a clue that something was happening internally that we cannot see on the outside. Rust is caused by corrosion, a natural process where metal is gradually destroyed....