Beans and Cornbread D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
October 2009
Museum People
Page: 2
The "Avocational Archeologist"
Not all the museum's human treasures are tucked safely away in the downtown building officially called "The Ailman House." In fact, if you want to meet Marilyn Markel, you're going to have to put a few extra miles on your vehicle, and be prepared to get your boots dirty.
 |
Marilyn Markel works on an archeological "dig." |
Marilyn is the museum's manager for the Mimbres Culture Heritage Site, situated out in the Mimbres Valley. It is one of the more unique aspects of the Silver City Museum's personality.
Yes, the museum does have a personality, and nowhere are its heritage and cultural elements more striking than when a visitor stands on the veranda of the primary structure on the ancient site and gazes out over the remnants of the adjacent Native American burial ground called "The Mattocks Ruin."
It's not just that Marilyn is a native New Mexican or that she is a graduate anthropologist that makes her qualified to guide visitors through the 19th-century buildings and the much-excavated burial site. She truly seems to belong there, almost in a spiritual sense.
She says, "I've been coming to the Mimbres Valley all my life, camping with my family when I was little, and it occurred to me when I was about 10 or 12 or so, as we were driving up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, 'I wonder just what a person would have to do to actually live here?'
"I first heard of the Mattocks site when I was an undergraduate student at UNM, and I just knew that historic preservation and education would be my life's work."
Marilyn worked in museum education at UNM, and even operated her own pre-school at one time. But the lure of the Mimbres and the call of ancient cultures had captured her interest, so she and her husband bought some land here. In 1992 they built their own house, and Marilyn finally called the Mimbres Valley her home.
"I became involved with the museum as a volunteer outreach program in 1993," she recalls, "and when the Mattocks site became the property of the museum society, it was just a natural fit for me to volunteer to manage the site.
"I've been doing some work with the schools and I'm most proud of the impact we're having on the kids. The children are the stewards of our future, and the more knowledge and perspective they can take into their future, the better citizens they will be."
But there's a lot more to Marilyn Markel than Indian ruins and old buildings. Along with her fraternal twin sister, she is a published author, with their third book set for release next spring.
"Our inspiration comes from the Mimbres Culture. Sometimes I think I must have been an early pot hunter or a Mimbres Indian in an earlier life," she adds with a laugh.
In fact, Marilyn laughs a lot. While searching for some photos to use with this story, she quips, "In most of these I'm down in a hole digging stuff up. You wouldn't believe how many pictures I've got of my backside. See, in a lot of these I'm just digging away and the guys are just watching me work."
While there has been some controversy over the development of the Mimbres site, Marilyn is working toward fulfilling a true educational purpose with the property.
She says, "Our goal is to complete our present work on getting a finished interpretive trail open to the public, and especially to the kids. There is so much history here that we think it should be a part of everyone's educational process to learn about our own Mimbres culture.
"Our central message is about preservation and education, and we think we're playing an important role in keeping this Mimbres culture alive in the modern world."
Leader of the Pack
Museum Director Susan Berry came to Silver City as a child in 1962, and never left. She came to the museum right out of college, "looking for a temporary job while I was trying to decide what I wanted to do when I grew up," she says.
 |
Susan Berry outside the museum she
directs.. |
"My parents came to teach at WNMU, and my mom was instrumental in the native plants movement, as well as curbside recycling and solar power promotion. I took my degrees at Western," she adds.
When Susan came to the museum, there was a staff of two: her and Harry Benjamin. "The lighting consisted of extension cords plugged into more extension cords, and there were some old vehicles and wagons," she remembers. "There has been a tremendous unfolding of building and construction over the years, with every step a major improvement."
Not only was Susan a newly minted college graduate when she came to the museum, but she was a newlywed as well. She met her husband-to-be in the summer of 1970, in the cast of Pinos Altos' first melodrama. They were both active in local theater productions, and have called Silver City home ever since.
Susan's work with the museum has received attention statewide, and her book Built to Last, co-authored with Sharman Russell, has become the go-to volume on the architecture of Silver City.
"What I truly love about the museum is that it has become a launching point for so many activities, I probably can’t even count them all any more," Susan says. "Our first quilt show was in 1988. During our second quilt show in 1990, there was a group working on their projects in the kitchen. This group became the nucleus of the Southwest New Mexico Quilters Guild." The museum’s latest quilt show, "Traditions Revisited," opens this month (see box).
"Our first cowboy poetry event was in 1989, and was called 'Cowboy Saturday Night,' and it grew out of a ranching exhibit we presented.
"I'm so very proud that we had the courage to do The Salt of the Earth Symposium," she adds, referring to a commemoration of the mining-strike story filmed in Grant County. "It was controversial and emotional and healing. It brought people together.
"At the same time, it's the small homespun events that give the museum its 'family' spirit. It's the grounding in the familiar. We truly feel we are 'the keepers of the community.'"
But it's not just locals who appreciate the Silver City Museum. "This museum has friends all over the world," she points out. "All kinds of institutions keep an eye on us. Expectations are high. We are a hugely collaborative entity and participate in a wide variety of activities with other community groups."
The museum society works closely with her on all building and exhibit projects and forms a valuable bond with the museum staff. Susan says, "The museum society supports the active engagement of the community and the museum. It's the bringing together of the community."
And there are so many more interesting folks at the museum, she notes. From a forestry expert to an award-winning muralist (see "Painting Lost Worlds," September) to the former director of a major American zoo, the Silver City Museum's people are as fascinating as its exhibits.
"Traditions Revisited," a quilt exhibit co-sponsored by the Silver City Museum and the Southwest New Mexico Quilters Guild, opens Oct. 9 with a reception from 12-3 p.m. and runs through Nov. 29. The show will include bed quilts, wall hangings, miniatures or doll quilts, and clothing in both Contemporary and Heirloom (completed prior to 1960) categories. The show is not juried, but Director's Choice, Curator's Choice and Viewer's Choice ribbons will be awarded. The Silver City Museum is located at 312 W. Broadway in Silver City. Hours are Tuesday through Friday, 9 a..m.-4:30 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; closed Mondays. Admission is $3 per person suggested donation. For information, call 538-5921 or (877) 777-7947 (out-of-town only), or visit www.silvercitymuseum.org |
Jim Kelly is a retired journalist who lives in Silver City. He introduced readers to some of the interesting folks involved in the Western Institute for Lifelong Learning in our September 2008 issue ("Where There's a WILL").