July 9, 2016 at 2:53 a.m.
Former curator filled the facility
In our own backyard
Former curator filled the facility
What’s the most special, interesting or unique piece in the building?
“There’s a whole bunch of them,” said Bruce Stong, who has volunteered at The Glass Museum for about eight years.
The retired preacher looks up and points out one, a gray and white chandelier hanging from the ceiling of the two-story facility on Franklin Street in Dunkirk.
It’s a piece that was brought back from Italy, he explains, noting that the man who purchased it was afraid to ship it as cargo. Instead, he bought two plane tickets, and the chandelier sat in the seat next to him for the flight back to the United States.
Stong then steps away to find Mary Foor, the former curator of the museum and now the children’s librarian at the adjacent Dunkirk Public Library, so that she can provide more information.
Foor has the rest of the story, noting that Kenny Webster, who served as curator for about two decades until his death in 1997, acquired the piece.
It’s not the only one.
“He did a lot of stuff,” said Foor. “This museum was his baby. He loved this museum. He loved Dunkirk.”
Asked about what items may have been Webster’s favorites, she indicates a display case near the center of the first floor. It shows off pieces that belonged to the former curator — ornate candle holders purchased in Florida that feature a floral design with hanging crystals; a custard glass set of small bowls and plates that belonged to Webster’s mother, a figurine of a chicken sitting atop a dog sitting atop another dog sitting atop a donkey; and an amber creation that Webster watched being hand-carved during a visit to China.
The recap of “special, interesting or unique” doesn’t stop there.
A nearby table displays a set of dining ware — pink with a hand-painted gold design and a gold border. Jacques R. Hille stayed after hours at his Indiana Glass Company workplace in Dunkirk creating the set, which was a gift for his daughter Louise Satterlee.
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“The color is a little different, because he didn’t have the color written down. He had it in his head,” said Foor. “So he just mixed it up, kind of like me when I make biscuits. … You can tell if you look at it really close there are a few a little darker than the others.”
Just beyond the dining set is another table with a variety of items, including a white eagle. It was one of four samples Indiana Glass made for White Eagle Oil Company for possible use at its service stations. (They were rejected because they were too fragile).
Foor, who turned over the curator job to Bob Rawlings about three years ago, then points out a glass rainbow hanging in a window on the second floor along the south wall of the building. It tells a little about Webster’s personality, as the former curator filled a glass container with gold coins to put at “the end of the rainbow.”
And, of course, Foor shows off the glass crown that is worn each year by the winner of the Cinderella Queen of Glass Pageant as part of Dunkirk’s Glass Days Festival. (Her granddaughter, Kylie Ring, was this year’s queen.)
She stops there, though it’s clear she could go on and on when talking about the pieces within. After all, there are more than 10,000.
“I love it,” said Foor, who worked in the glass factory for eight years and whose mother, Mary Gallagher, was an employee at Indiana Glass for 37.
Just a few steps away from the rainbow and pot of gold upstairs is a glass football. Atop the next display case sits a family of glass swans, a variety of colors surrounding the brilliant blue animal in the center.
A display case along the opposite wall includes a shelf with a variety of decorative bottles made for National Soft Drink Association conventions. Former Dunkirk resident Leo Glogas donated them to the museum.
Those are just a few of the other pieces that stand out during a walk through the museum that for years was led by the man who carefully transported the glass chandelier back from Italy.
“He did a lot,” said Foor. “He begged people for glassware. He filled it up too.”
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