W.I. museum moves to new location

Emo council passed a lease agreement between the township and the Rainy River District Women’s Institute Museum last Tuesday evening, allowing the museum executive to take over the three vacant houses located behind the local OPP office on a 99-year lease, tax exempt.
“It was really a nice feeling to have that lease signed and done,” Ruth Brett, who sits on the museum board, said Friday. “Now we can move since conditions here are serious—it’s an old, old building.”
With the help of many community volunteers, the W.I. was able to pack up boxes and artifacts and relocate them Saturday.
“Seeing how we have these relatively new quarters, we figured rather than pay to heat this building through the winter, we just may as well move right over,” Brett remarked.
She also noted the artifacts will be in much better environmental conditions in the new location.
Brett explained the artifacts will be stored in the northern-most building for now.
“We’re going to build a 33’x 60’ addition between the other two homes, so we’ll have a great big, nice museum,” she enthused.
The house being used for storage also will open as the tourist information centre during the season—offering bathroom facilities and refreshments—until the new structure is ready.
Then the plan for this building is to turn it into a tea house and meeting facility for local groups and committees.
But Brett conceded she isn’t sure when the building of the addition and remodelling will begin since funding is not yet in place.
“We are, at the present time, contacting government services, as well as working on getting funding from anyone we can,” she stressed. “And we’re going to do a campaign once we get going here.”
She added they will be accepting donations from residents and businesses in the district.
“It will cost a lot of money,” Brett warned. “We have no idea how much. We are waiting for the architect to give us his preliminary drawings and at the same time he thinks he can give us a cost estimates.
“So we’re kind of just waiting right now.”
The former museum location is owned by the W.I. and will be put up for sale.
“We’re just excited—we’re looking forward to it,” Brett enthused. “We have visions of how this beautiful new edifice is going to be.”
In other business at last week’s meeting, Emo council:
•heard a presentation by Anne Marie Vanderaa regarding the success of the nutrition program at Donald Young School;
•reviewed outstanding tax accounts and determined they will be increasing their contact with these residents;
•discussed examining the fuel tanks at the Emo landfill site in the spring because the ones inside the building need to be filled from the outside and the base must be concrete rather than wood;
•agreed to support the Rainy River Federation of Agriculture in its efforts to petition the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to declare the district a drought disaster area and grant compensation to farmers; and
•agreed to support Oxford MPP Ernie Hardeman regarding the proposed Provincial-Municipal Fiscal and Service Delivery Review, which will not be completed until February, 2008.
Emo council’s next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 28 at 7 p.m. at the municipal office.