Museum features wide variety of historical items

PENFIELD, Ill. — New items are added each year to the exhibits at the museum located in the former Penfield school on the showgrounds of the Historic Farm Days, set for July 10-13.

“We are going to move some things around because we have someone bringing in milkshake machines that were used in restaurants,” said Betty Bensyl, chairwoman of the museum.

The household area includes a wooden tabletop model radio and a Singer sewing machine.

“There will also be a display of different maps,” Bensyl said. “Everybody likes the pink stove and they talk about it because that’s a little more in the modern era.”

The household exhibit has an old-fashioned kitchen area with several washing machines.

In the hallway, visitors to the show can view a display of toy implements that Glenn Miller made during the war when people could not afford to purchase these items.

“He made miniature toys, too, and those are on display,” Bensyl said. “To me that’s interesting how he took a wheel off an old washing machine and made that the front tractor wheel — it’s just amazing how he did things.”

Blacksmith items are on display in the hallway, as well as some Penfield history.

“The Penfield grade school had band uniforms,” Bensyl said. “There is a tag inside of the uniform that says it was made in Illinois, but not too many small-town schools had band uniforms, especially Penfield.”

Another band uniform recently showed up at the museum on a hanger.

“I have to find out who brought that in,” Bensyl said. “People pass away and they have a uniform hanging in a closet and all of a sudden it shows up at our museum.”

Sometimes people bring things to the show that they want to display in the museum.

“We have a form to fill out if they want to loan it and then they pick it up after the show,” the museum chairperson said. “Or, a lot of people want to gift it to us and we have a form to fill out for that.”

Bensyl enjoys spending time in the museum each year at the show.

“Every time someone comes in, I learn so much from people who are talking to their grandkids or spouses,” she said.

A large variety of farm-related items, ranging from hand tools to implements, fill two floors of the building that once was a place for students from the Penfield area to learn.

Most of the items in the museum have been donated, and some are on loan from members of the I&I Antique Tractor and Gas Engine Club.

Visitors have the opportunity to see two very special items in the museum that are on loan from the Smithsonian Institution.

The first one the club received is the 1961 International Harvester HT-341 Turbine Tractor. The next year, the 1903 Hart-Parr tractor was added to the museum display.

Along with the two tractors, the former gym features a couple of additional tractors, as well as larger items such as a sheller, hay equipment and a couple of buggies.

The stairway to the second floor goes to the small farming items. The display includes tools that might have been used for farming from the 1920s to 1950s.

The four former classrooms on the main level of the school have been transformed into exhibit areas by the club members.

One room in the museum is a replica of an International Harvester store. It has shelving and there are displays of all kinds of IH things.

The members of the IH Collectors Club Illinois Chapter 10 staff this area of the museum during the show.

In the corn room of the museum, visitors will see items like planters, seed corn sacks, signs and shellers.

The I&I club uses the former cafeteria in the school as its meeting room.

On the walls of that room there are posters and memorabilia from Historic Farm Days from the beginning and also the Half Century of Progress show since day one.

Visitors to the show also have the opportunity to tour the former Penfield Methodist Church on the showgrounds.

“This year we are planning to have church plates and items like that on display from different churches in the area,” Bensyl said.

In the past, displays in the church have featured crosses, nativity sets, hymn books, bibles, baby pictures, wedding photos and Christmas ornaments.

Many of the club members, Bensyl said, don’t know everything that’s in the museum, because they don’t have time to walk around the museum during the show.

“Come in, enjoy, relax and look around,” she said. “You don’t have to hurry through.”