Zane Grey Family Day: By the community, for the community
NORWICH, Ohio – The Museum Association of East Muskingum hosted their annual Zane Grey Family Day Saturday.
The National Road and Zane Grey Museum saw around 300 visitors during the free event that featured food trucks, crafts, free museum tours, and volunteers like Rachel Baker. Baker was part of a group of volunteers who have been offering a free and unique dining experience for the last 6 or 7 years.
“Volunteering my time, cooking over the open fire, just getting people out here to see the museum. It’s all free today, it’s all by donations. they got a baseball game about to start here shortly. Stop and get a bowl of beans, some deer and home-made noodles,” Baker said. “It’s all about the community. Makes you feel good to help with the community.”
Hope Neal is the assistant director of the Museum Association of East Muskingum and says volunteers like Baker are key to Zane Grey Family Day.
“I am always so very grateful because we have a lot of moving parts here to make sure there’s things for Dad and Mom and Grandma and grandkids, which means we rely on a lot of people,” Neal said. “And, we are so very fortunate to have volunteers who care about history, who enjoy what they do and come back every single year. And even this year we had some very last minute calls. My husband got called in for the baseball team about an hour ago. So, we’re really happy to have a community that’s willing to support us even when they’re not even sure what’s going on that day.”
That baseball game Neal just mentioned, was the vintage baseball game between the Ohio Village Muffins and the local team called the Zane Greys. All of the fun and games on display were for the sake the children to get them hooked on history.
“I really enjoy seeing the kids get really excited about history,” Neal said. “They come in and they hear toys and prizes and crafts and they do that and then I see them look out of the corner of their eye, see something interesting and go ‘Mom and Dad, what is this?’ And that is always just a spark of joy for me to be able to see them be curious about their surroundings and then they end up learning a little bit about their area and hopefully it will stick with them.”
The National Road and Zane Grey Museum opens May 1 and the Museum Association of East Museum will host a Patriotic Painting Party as part of the America 250 celebrations at the John and Annie Glenn Museum on May 5.
