Why We Are Here

J. Scott Garbry Museum Tours Offered to Area Elementary Students

Upper Valley JVS Environmental Occupations students will be conducting their 25th annual museum "Look at Yesteryear" program in conjunction with their "Maple Sugaring Days" demonstration on February 8-12 and February 17-19.

According to instructor, Rod Schmidt, elementary students will be visiting a village of the early 1900’s during this two-hour tour/program. The old-time village, located in Garbry Hall at the Willowbrook Environmental Education Center, has shops and offices from yesteryear. The students will see and hear how town merchants and professionals performed their trade around the early 1900’s. They will enter an old-time barbershop, post office, general store, bank, and harness shop. A shoe cobbler’s shop, a one-room schoolhouse, an undertaker/cabinet maker’s shop and blacksmith building are also included.

JVS students will be demonstrating how to make rope with a rope making machine and how to use a cross-cut saw and froe to build a log cabin. Students will also be shown how to make maple syrup like the Native Americans. Environmental Occupations students will tap the sugar maple trees from the Willowbrook woods and then make the syrup on a wood burning stove in the sugar camp.

This program is available to area students in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades. This museum experience will help reinforce state standards for the social studies curriculum for those grades. Tours may be scheduled from 9:00 to 11:30 a.m. or from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Availability is on a first-come, first-served basis

To schedule a tour or for more information, contact Rod Schmidt or Jim Metz at the Willowbrook Environmental Education Center at (937) 778-8763. They may also be e-mailed at schmidtr@uvjvs.org or metzj@uvjvs.org.