GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING Sunday, June 26 2:00 pm 309 W. Sealy Street (Alvin Senior Center) Join us at the upcoming Alvin Museum Society General Membership Meeting to hear author, Eileen Wagner review her book. "The Ghost City of San Luis Island". Based on historical events from the 1500’s to the present, the book describes an in-depth look at the City of San Luis and its people through newspaper clippings, maps, documents and narrative collections along with several rare photos that have never been made available to the public before.

Thursday evening, May 5th, 2016 Alvin Museum will have the opening of a new exhibit. " A Mother's Love" Rose King Doll Exhibit.

Robbie and Michelle Schultz Gardem on the Alvin Garden Clup 16th Annual Garden Tour 2016

Hood-Case Elementary Nature Gardens on the Alvin Garden Club 16th Annual Garden Tour 2016

Garden Club's 16th Annual Alvin Area Garden Tour. Theme: Customizing Backyard Spaces Price- $8 donation to Alvin Museum Society $7 advance tickets available at Alvin Historical Museum, Alvin-Manvel Chamber of Commerce, DaVinci Salon, Helen's Flowers

Alvin Museum Society is proud to be a part of the Alvin Area Garden Tour again this year! Maps and details coming soon.

2nd Graders donate to the Museum

Students of Lou Ann Vasquez's 2nd Grade class presented a check to Jerry Pryor and Kathy Mattes, representatives of the Alvin Museum Society The students earned the money through their annual "Wax Museum" class project. The students dressed as, and recited information about historical figures, receiving donations for their efforts. The Society congratulates theses boys and girls for their interest in history and greatly appreciates their generous donation to the Museum.

Don't forget !!! On Saturday, April 18th, 2015, Alvin Museum Society will sponsor the Fifteenth Annual Alvin Area Garden Tour. Touring hours are 10:00 A.M. til 4:00 P.M., and the tour price of $8.00* is a tax-deductible donation to AMS. The event includes tours of three private area gardens (listed below) plus the Marguerite Rogers House Museum, as well as a plant sale out of the House Museum garage and Alvin Garden Club's Annual Flower Show at the Senior Center. Garden of Joe Sumners at 703 Old Galveston Rd. Garden of Bob and Judy Webb at 1404 Highland Dr. Garden of Roger and Jeannette Stuksa at 2185 Troon Dr. This year’s Tour theme is "Conserving, Recycling, and Winterizing." The theme of this year’s Flower Show is "A Fantasy Fairy Tale: 'Jack and the Beanstalk.'" *$8.00 Tickets with flyers and maps will be available on the day of the tour at each garden. Advance tickets are available for only $7.00 each until April 17 at several places in Alvin: the Alvin-Manvel Area Chamber of Commerce, Helen’s Flowers, DaVinci Salon, and during open times at Alvin Historical Museum. Please purchase tickets for yourself and a companion to join in the fun, or give tickets as gifts to friends or loved ones. Even if you are scheduled to work a two-hour shift, there will still be plenty of time for going on the tour. Proceeds from the event will fund maintenance of the House Museum and grounds. For a nominal rental fee, there is boothspace available on the Museum grounds for venders of garden/patio art, furniture, accessories, etc. For further information, call 28l-393-l538 or consult the Alvin Museum Society blogspot: amuseums.blogspot.com. (Calls and e-mails will be done during the 2 weeks before the event to remind AMS members who have signed up to work shifts at the sites and lend support by doing other necessary tasks before, during, and after the Tour.)

15th Annual Garden tour

This year's theme-- "Conserving, Recycling, and Winterizing"--promises some tips and pointers for every Gulf Coast gardener/ homeowner. Along with the cottage and grounds of the House Museum, we've booked three private gardens for touring: Joe Sumners' on Old Galveston Road, the Stuksas' on Troon Drive, and the Webbs' on Highland Drive. Once again, Alvin Garden Club's Annual Flower Show will be part of our line-up, and we'll have the usual Plant Sale out of the House Museum garage. There are two ways for every AMS member to help. The Graefs will bring in some blooming plants from Smith Nurseries for our sale, but we'll also need donated plants of all kinds. Please think of our event during your spring cleanup. And please get ready to say "yes" when an AMS member calls to sign you up for a two-hour workshift at one of the sites. We'll need plant cashiers and sale watchers, ticket takers and garden watchers. No "job" is difficult, but all are necessary to the success of our event. Sign-up sheets will be out at the February AMS meeting, and calls will begin after that to complete our workforce. If there is a particular job you'd like to sign up for early, please call Pat Klopp at 281-393-1538. Before most calling begins, she will be looking for various kinds of help: counting out and batching tickets and flyers in February for distribution to our advance ticket sellers and for inclusion in our cash boxes; doing some "superficial" cleaning of the cottage and outbuild-ings and/or receiving donated plants on the Friday before the event; chairing tour sites (picking up supplies and set-ting up ticket table and/or taking it down and returning supplies to the House Museum) on the day of the event. Remember that your loyal AMS participation is what keeps our event successful!

The February meeting featured a presentation on early flight history and the story of the Savidge family that were pioneers in airplane flight and did air shows in Alvin, Texas before the First World War. Some of the family settled here and some descendants attended our meeting.

The Karpeles Manuscript Museum has put their building (the old Methodist Church on Johnson Street) up for sale. The city is working to try to keep them here. We are putting together a presentation to go before City Council Thursday February 5th defining the many benefits of the museum to our city. The last portion of the presentation will be a list of people who urge that council make every effort to ensure this museum locates in our city including making available funds from the Hotel/Motel Tax Fund. We are soliciting names of people to include from across this community who support this endeavor. Below is the actual text under which the names would be listed. Please reply to this email if we can have your permission to include your name on the list. If you have questions please feel free to contact Tom Stansel at 713 247-9356. For additional information, this is the link to the Karpeles Museum website: http://www.rain.org/~karpeles/ it is well worth the time to look at the web site and see the Karpeles’ incredible collection. Thanks, Tom A Request from the Alvin Community Dr. Karpeles is a California philanthropist who has spent many years collecting significant documents and currently has a collection of over 1 million original manuscripts (the largest private collection in the world). He has opened over a dozen manuscript museums around the United States where his huge collection is displayed. His museums do not charge an admission fee and he has also instituted a program of taking copies of the manuscripts to local schools as a free educational tool. Alvin has been incredibly fortunate to have Dr. Karpeles select Alvin (the only site in Texas) as a site for one of his museums. He has purchased the old Methodist Church on Johnson Street and has been restoring this historic building for over 3 years but due to rising costs and building code issues, he is considering relocating elsewhere. We request the Mayor and City Council make every effort to ensure this museum locates in our city including making available funds from the Hotel-Motel Tax Fund.

AMS participating in Keep Alvin Beautiful "Depot Days". Members and volunteers participated in and watched the Depot Days parade Sturdy August 30, 2014. Young volunteers handed out flyers asking "Do You "NOSE" your Museum" showing off their clown noses.

Link to the AMS website

Connect with the Alvin Museum Society website by clicking this link- AMS Website

REPORT ON FOURTEENTH ANNUAL ALVIN AREA GARDEN TOUR

Thanks to all of you who helped to make our annual Garden Tour the most successful one we’ve had–$2,158.37 earned for maintenance of the Marguerite Rogers House Museum. Thanks to Terry and Jody Droege, Troy and Pam Lewis, and Nate and Jodi Woodsmith for letting us feature their unique outdoor spaces this year. Thanks to those who worked ahead of time on preparations: Jerry Pryor helped to find gardens to feature, and she made reminder calls to workers. Bobbie Case and Jean Vance cleaned and readied the Cottage and the privy/storage shed/library. Trent Klopp helped me clean the garage, and Bobbie and I kept it open on Friday, April 11, for the delivery of donated plants. Dick and Betty Graef chose Smith Nursery plants early and, with the help of Charles Miller, picked them up and transported them to the garage on the day before our event. Donated plants for the Saturday sale came from the Klopps, the Graefs, Robert and Elsie Beard, Bart and Joy Dell DeWitt, James and Katie Janik, Nancy Jermain, Tom and Kathy Mattes, Georgie May Hayes, Janie Whitaker, Pam Evans, and probably other members whose names were not recorded during the rush. With all the blooming things from Smith’s Nursery and all the tomato plants that the Graefs brought, we had quite a lot for the sale. Thanks to so many for help on Saturday with set-up/take-down and staffing at MRHM. With help from Noel Hankamer and Bart DeWitt getting the antique car out of the garage and putting signs out, and from the Beards and Graefs setting up the sale–with Barbara Biggers and June Wyatt as cashiers and Georgie May Hayes and Charles Miller as sale watchers–we were able to sell most of our plants by mid-afternoon, when Bart and Tom Mattes–and probably several others--helped the Graefs to fold everything down after the event. Bobbie (Chairman) and Jean and Lois Horner were our docents. Jerry Pryor (Chairman), Marlena Nelson-Goddard, Fran Van Winkle, and JoAnn Jolly staffed the outdoor ticket table until our two money counters–Janie Lindsey and Judy Scott–took over at 3:00 P.M. Thanks so much to openers and closers and to those who chaired shifts and worked at least two hours--sometimes longer: Emmit and JoAnn Miller, Billy and Linda Struckmeyer, Bob and Ruby Adams, Mona Travis, Diane Davenport, Kathy Mattes, Ruth Ann Schovajsa, and Betty Speed. And thanks to so many of you who worked shifts at the private gardens: Karl and Olivia Brohammer, Bart and JoyDell DeWitt, Bill and Georgia DeWitt, Cornell Dewitt, Vicki Ennis, Alice Goyen, J.B. and Beverley Hensler, Katie Janik, Howard and Louise Johnson, Trent Klopp, Ricky and Joyce Kubeczka, Joyce Lewis, Nelma Martin, Joan McNabb, Gloria Mercer, Amanda Miles, Tommy and Becky Peebles, Martha Rolingson, Alice Segers, Helen Strouhal, Roger and Jeannette Stuksa, Doyle and Rosemary Swindell, Flora Ann Triplett, Janie Whitaker, Annette Williams, and Judy Zavalla And thanks to Alvin Garden Club for allowing us to include their Annual Flower Show as part of our event, and to Kenny Schonert, who picked up our leftover plants and pots to nurture and sell at St. John’s Catholic Church Bazaar in May. Thanks also go to Dreyfus Printing for our flyers; to the radio stations and newspapers in Alvin and surrounding towns, to all of you who posted flyers, and to the staff at Brazoria County Historical Museum for helping with publicity; to Alvin Police Department for patroling our sale overnight on Friday, April 11; to County Mosquito Controllers for being on hand in case we needed them; to staff at Alvin Muffler Shop, Buddy Lindsey and his Old Time Service Station staff, and staff at the Overhead Door Shop and the Metal Shop for permitting us to use their parking on Saturday; and to Billy Struckmeyer and Emmit Miller and their AMS maintenance crew, Mike Buitron, and Rush Maintenance for keeping our MRHM property looking so good. It takes a community to staff this event. Thanks to all of you for helping to keep it going during the past fifteen years! Working together, we’ve earned just under $20,000.00 for maintenance of our little Alvin treasure–The Marguerite Rogers House Museum. – Pat Klopp

The museum has a new temporary exhibit celebrating 100 years of 4-H in Texas. Stop by and see it!

Pat Klopp announced the 14th annual Alvin Area Garden Tour for Saturday, April 12, 2014. The tour, sponsored by the Alvin Museum Society, will feature the Marguerite Rogers House Museum, a plant sale , the garden of Troy and Pam Lewis, the garden of Terry and Judy Droege, and the gardens of the Funky Monkey Farms. There will also be a Flower Show at the Alvin Senior Citizens Center. Tickets are $7 for advance sales, and 8$ at the tour.'

Our October meeting featured a presentation by Michael Bailey of the Brazoria County Museum, and Les Pettigrew of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. They gave us a presentation of the fortifications along the Texas coast during the Civil War. Photos are at the link below.
http://smg.photobucket.com/user/papao55/library/Alvin%20Museum%20Society%20Fall%20Membership%20Meeting/Alvin%20Museum%20Society%20October%202013

ALVIN MUSEUM SOCIETY
GENERAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING
Sunday, October 27, 2013, 2:00 P.M.
Alvin Senior Center, 309 W. Sealy St., west wing
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Be sure to put October 27th on your calendar!!! The General Membership Meeting
will start at 2:00 P.M. with Michael Bailey and Les Pettigrew (in period garb)
introducing our latest AMS exhibit, “The Civil War Years.” Their Civil War
presentation, entitled “The Blue and The Gray,” is about Confederate Forts on the
Texas Gulf Coast. Bailey and Pettigrew are both members of the 13th Texas Infantry
Regiment, Camp #1565 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
There will be announcements and refreshments after the program.

Alvin Museum Society Annual Membership Meeting Honoring Bobbie Case for her years with the Marguerite Rogers House Museum Sunday June 23, 2013 at 2:00 PM at the Alvin Senior Center , 309 W Sealy St, Alvin , Texas. The Marguerite Rogers House Museum has been one of the Society's most treasured possessions. After Herculean fundraising efforts and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, the House Museum became a reality on April 29,2003. Since that time Bobbie Case and her MRHM Committee have opened the Cottage for visitors on Thursdays, Fridays, and the first Saturdays of the month. Please attend this meeting to honor Bobbie Case and the former and current docents for all their hard work to keep a bit of Alvin history alive. It is time to renew your membership in the museum society. The best way would be to attend this meeting and renew or sign up!

The Annual Alvin Garden Club tour will be Saturday, April 20, 2013.