Bug Hunting in the Mansion (Museum Integrated Pest Management Programs)

Have you ever been on tour at Parkwood, or another museum, and noticed the insect traps? Or for that matter the mouse traps? It's all part of an Integrated Pest Management Program at your local heritage site and a large part of our preservation work. Our insect traps are pheromone based and yes, every couple of weeks, I look at them, and log what and whom I find in there ( glamorous, isn't it?) or on occasion I find an envelope containing some DEAD creature with several legs, with a note, "found in tub in Col. Sam's room, just in case you need to know. "
Book lice, cockroaches, moths, silverfish, the house spider...all sorts of creepy crawlies exist at Parkwood, and yes, the cause of many itchy sessions in my office, a major cause of concern with regards to the preservation matters of our significant collections. For example, the American cockroach feeds on leather and the lovely proteins it can find in all the leather Parkwood has to offer to sustain a single cockroach life. Leather top tables, leather upholstery, leather bindings in the pipe organ, leather book covers, etc. A variable feast for a tenacious roach!

This week I have been battling the carpet beetle. Treatments of boric acid along baseboards, rooms being closed to public tours, and staff, to ensure there is no beetle migration to other rooms, or our own homes; massive cleaning with HEPA vacuum filters; covert visits to darkened rooms to seek entry or nesting points; book collections being frozen in the "curatorial" freezer in the basement; etc. have been part of the Parkwood fight to ensure we rid ourselves of these pests, and prevent any further damage to the collections.  It is this sort of outbreak that has Parkwood revisit our museum practises and procedures when it comes to the estate and our role as stewards of such a magnificent site. 
The first question I receive is how did the beetles get into the mansion? For the most part, we will never know. I cannot blame a single source. Think about the foot traffic and if the beetle came in on someones shoes; a propped open window, although we enforce screens, if a window must be opened, there are times that a screen is not guaranteed; and lets face it, the doors open and close with frequency. The standard policy in the estate is no live flowers, although, from the curatorial perspective, I am torn, because the McLaughlins' had fresh, live florals in the house everyday, and accurate interpretation would want us to replicate (although current budgets dictate otherwise); there is the introduction of prop furniture and carpets for the film industry; there is food consumption in exhibit areas with regards to the weddings and rentals (completely ancillary business and a violation of museum standard practise, but 100% necessary to cover our costs). So, no easy answer.
Parkwood staff and volunteers continue with our regular days and duties, in between bug hunts and treatments.  Museum work is not all about research and pushing paper, curators often get to be amateur entomologists, although not by choice, nor fondness for several legged creatures.

Service Staff Reunion

Many of you are aware that we avidly seek out and record the oral histories of the former domestic staff of the McLaughlins. The collection of the oral histories; photographs of the staff from various years; and maintaining the relationships with these folks is integral to our interpretation program at the National Historic Site.

In the past, I have mentioned how fortunate I am to be able to call upon a few of the grandchildren to help elucidate fact from fiction in what we hear and read about Parkwood, and the same is true with the former staff. Opportunities, like this upcoming reunion, provide us with the chance to reunite, chat about old times, allow current staff to communicate exciting news about current projects, but most importantly, allow us to capture the memories of the very human moments of what it was like to work at Parkwood, know Sam and Adelaide McLaughlin, and what the atmosphere was like in the bustling estate.

Often the very description of a bustling estate with parlour maids to and fro, and the laundry facilities going full throttle, while freshly washed linens hung on the long lost clothes line; the smells of polish; silver, leather or shoe, hanging in the air mixing with the tobacco of pipe, cigar, and cigarette smoke that enveloped the mansion elude us in our current "pristine and reverently quiet" museum setting and it is through these reunions that we catch a glimpse of the daily lives of the entire estate family. It was never documented in any archive in the Parkwood holdings about which stair creaked on the service steps, alerting the head housekeeper to a maid sneaking in after breaking curfew, or the cat that was rescued and kept "hidden" in the greenhouse with veterinarian bills being hidden amongst other household documents, hoping to escape Sam McLaughlin's keen eye during review; or the quiet generosity of a wealthy family and their private philanthropic offers towards their household staff . All of these stories come to light during the reunions, stories which help round out our interpretation programs, and often create the parallels, while on tour, with the lives of the general public visiting the Estate. We look forward to seeing everyone again on Sunday and I look forward to being able to share with our audience new stories about the life and times of Sam and Adelaide McLaughlin and the people who worked at Parkwood, while it was a family home.