In March 2012, after thirteen years, I returned to St. Louis and St. Charles, Missouri. This time, as a historical novelist writing for WaterBrook Multnomah, to do research for my new series, The Quilted Heart. The post Civil War mid-1860s provides the historical backdrop for my three Quilted Heart eBook novellas.
First stop: The Gateway Arch and the Museum of Westward Expansion in St. Louis. Everything about the grounds and the Arch mesmorized me, but the museum…well, it was like a candy store with all my favorite sweets. Props from American history.
Less than one year later, Dandelions on the Wind, the first of The Quilted Heart Novellas released, and is now available as an exclusive eBook.
Do you have a favorite museum? Where is it?
Comments 3
I have two! The Animas Museum in Durango, Colorado, at which I have been working on my family genealogy and history since 1988 and the Historical Museum at Clinton, MO. This museum has the Henry Avery family Bible and many other wonderful family mementos. These are personal places, where I feel welcome as a contributor and researcher.
And there are plenty more we’ve been to for research, the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores and the Colorado Train Museum in Golden, both in Colorado. My one goal this year would be to go to the new History Colorado Museum in Denver. Lsst time we were there it was closed in preparation for moving to the not yet built new building. Another small town-built museum is in Papinville, Missouri, where my great great grandmother lived between 1851 and 1859, before the Kansas-Missouri border wars occurred.
I love museums!
I don’t know that I have a favorite museum, but the one that had the most impact on me was the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. My husband was at some health sciences convention/conference and I went with him to the city. One afternoon I went to the museum and I must have spent a good 3-4 hours walking around it. It “packed a wallop” as I like to say. It really hit me emotionally. I was glad I didn’t have anything else planned for after it because my mind wouldn’t have been focused. Instead, I walked back to the hotel just thinking about what I had seen.
I now recommend it to anyone I know that’s going to DC.
As for the Gateway Arch, that is somewhere I’d like to go. I’ve driven through the city twice; once on our move to Arizona, and once again on our move back to Pennsylvania 3 years later. The closest I got to the Arch was seeing it ahead of me while I sat in a construction zone traffic jam!
Hi Kathy! How fun that you share my love of history museums. I’ve added the ones you’ve mentioned to my list. The one in Papinville sounds especially interesting. Blessings! Mona