This summer has been a busy one, both at home and at the museum. We had two family reunions, a family wedding and two of our grandchildren visiting. At the museum, we had Eddie Cochran Weekend, AARP defensive driving classes, serving at the farmers market twice, our Swiss steak fundraiser at the American Legion with supplemental funding from Thrivent, our mystery bus tour, having two new furnaces and one new air conditioner installed, several bus tours with catered meals and visitors from all over the world stopping to visit our exhibits.

The parsonage and shed have been scraped and painted by volunteers from the Daybreakers Kiwanis Club and Albert Lea Medical Center. One of the AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project walking moai groups volunteered to plant flowers and other volunteers have helped to clean up the grounds and worked at our fundraisers this summer. We deeply appreciate all of our volunteers for sharing their talents with us to make your home town museum a better place and to help us to continue to preserve the history of Freeborn County and its people.

The Vitality Project is surely going to be a notable part of our history! With coverage from “Good Morning America,” AARP and United Health Foundation, we must realize that the world around us is certainly watching what is going on in Albert Lea. I talked with Marion Ross the day that “Good Morning America” aired our story and she said she was working on the set of “Brothers and Sisters” (as she will be appearing this fall season) and she had cast, crew and others all watching her hometown — Albert Lea — on “Good Morning America”!

We encourage you to take the pledge and Vitality Compass and help make history as we all work to make Albert Lea a healthy place to live. Wouldn’t it be great to add two years to your life? And wouldn’t it be wonderful if they were healthy years? We can make a difference with just minor changes in our lifestyles and eating habits. Wouldn’t it be great if that change enabled you to see one of your grandchildren marry or have a family of their own or achieve some other milestone that is important in their life. Think about it. I know I want to see my grandchildren grow up and have families of their own and I want to know all of my great grandchildren and be able to do things with them!

Our grandchildren, Morgan and Dylan, were with us for two weeks. While they were here we made a trip to Ohio for a family wedding. They were excellent travelers. We played a lot of games; they drew, read and were a delight to have with us. While we were on our way to my sister Sandy’s house, Morgan inquired what our itinerary was going to be. I told her what the plans were as far as going from Sandy’s to my other sister Deb’s house for the wedding and so forth and she looked at me a bit puzzled and said, “We are going to see Great-Grandma Julie’s grave, aren’t we?” I said we surely are and she and I made the trip to the country and visited the cemetery where my mom is buried and where she and I had been with my mom on that first vacation we took together when she was only 3 years old.

That Memorial Day trip made quite an impression on her and formed a bond and a sense of family that a lot of youngsters maybe would not understand. She has a respect for those who have passed before us yet also knows that they were family and how important they were and still are in our hearts and minds.

It has continued to be a summer of making memories as we had our annual Beck sibling reunion and at the request of the grandchildren my son drove five hours over on Saturday morning so they could attend the reunion for five hours and then drove five hours back so he could get his homework done and go to work early the next morning. The grandchildren got to see their cousins from Wyoming and their aunts and uncles and the bond grows stronger. You must always remember, what happens today is history tomorrow and sometimes the smallest, trivial event can make a lasting memory in the heart and life of a child.

The museum will be hosting a four-hour refresher AARP defensive driving class on Tuesday, Aug. 18, from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. The cost is $19 per participant and you must pre-register. Stop by the museum or give us a call at 373-8003 for details.

We will also be holding our annual Echoes from the Past — A Journey into History at Graceland Cemetery on Wednesday, Aug. 19, at 6:30 p.m. Please plan to join us for a lovely evening when history literally comes to life as our re-enactors portray the lives of early residents of Albert Lea. The cost is $5, and if it should happen to rain, the rain location is the museum. Watch for further details in the near future about this event and what characters you will be learning about as we take our journey into history!

Albert Lea was also featured in the July/August issue of The Minnesota Preservationist magazine. If you do not receive the magazine, you can check out the article by visiting its Web site at: www.mnpreservation.org. You will need to type in Heritage Tourism, and then click on July/August 2009 Issue. (This archive may not be available online until the first of September.)

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