This week, the Freeborn County Historical Society will host a four-hour AARP Defensive Driving Refresher Class on Tuesday from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. The cost is $19 and you must pre-register.

We have been busy at the Freeborn County Museum, Library & Historical Village preparing for “Autumn in the Village,” which will take place next Sunday, Sept. 20, from noon to 4 p.m. We have painted the inside of the one-room school house, the inside of the general store, the outside of the blacksmith and woodworking shops and the outside of the parsonage and shed. Rock has been placed around the log cabin, post office, mill building, and under and around the machinery. The chinking has been completed on the post office. We have cleaned up the area behind the buildings, restacked bricks and leveled out the ground behind the hardware store. Inside we have updated the World War II exhibit. I am in the process of completely redoing the Marion Ross Exhibit and there may be a few other changes inside before next Sunday.

Autumn in the Village will have several attractions this year that we didn’t have last year. We will have a book-binding demonstration, a fur trader, an apple press demonstration, and our blacksmith shop will be back in operation. There will be a barber in the barber shop with items to show you from the past. Plan on getting a photo taken in our photography shop or purchasing some old fashioned candy in the general store. There will be music, good food and, of course, that old-fashioned sarsaparilla. Many of our regular demonstrators will be here and we will be making Christmas ornaments that will be given to the residents at St John’s Lutheran Home and Knutson Place this Christmas.

Autumn in the Village is our main fundraiser of the year and there will be supplementmal funds by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Freeborn County Chapter 31190 for this event. Admission is $5 for adults, $1 for students ages 12 to 18, and members and children 11 years and younger free. Plan to spend the afternoon with us as we turn back the clock to an earlier era of time.

It is also membership time. We started accepting memberships for 2010 on Sept. 1. If you are not currently a member, this is an excellent time to become a member because you will receive the benefits of membership for September through December of 2009 plus all of 2010 by joining now. If you are a member, plan on renewing when you come to “Autumn in the Village” and this will help the museum to save on postage, paper and time. We appreciate everyone’s continued support to the museum and our programs.

So far this year we have had visitors from 16 foreign countries and 33 different states. I find this quite remarkable, yet there are many people who live in Freeborn County that have never visited the museum. I encourage you to invite a friend or neighbor and come out to visit the museum and see what others are enjoying. You might be surprised at how many things might be of interest to you.

The museum and library are open year round, but the village will be closing on Sept. 30. For this season, so you only have a few more weeks to see all the improvements that have been made in the village this year.

FCHS will be hosting a “Lefse & Leafing” Bus Trip on Thursday, Oct. 8. We will board the motorcoach at 8:15 a.m. near the arches at the entrance to the fairgrounds and return at approximately 4:30 p.m. Call the museum to register or for more details.

It has been exciting to see all the events involved with Blue Zones and AARP. Remember what happens today is history tomorrow! The AARP/Blue Vitality Project is history in progress. I hope you are participating in this event that will surely be a piece of Albert Lea history that will be remembered by the world.

Pat Mulso is the executive director of the Freeborn County Historical Museum in Albert Lea.