Museum activities

(Top photo) A glass collection owned by Harvey Payne is on display at the Marshall County Historical Museum. Payne began collecting glass, he said, because his wife “was kind of dragging her feet” in the hobby she took up first, he said. “I kind of picked it up,” he said. Three types of glass are included in the collection, uranium glass (Vaseline glass), carnival glass and amber glass. The uranium glass is named from the element which glows when placed under black light. To make the amber glass, gold dust is included at the end of the glass-making process. A Palm Beach pitcher pattern is used in three of the glass types – uranium, amber, and carnival. “To find Palm Beach in amber, white carnival and Vaseline opalescent in a single collection is quite unusual,” Payne said. Payne has also donated an airplane he made of a spark plug while serving in the military to the museum. (Bottom photo) Payne helps museum curator Lois Swaney-Shipp install a plaque at Ludie’s window on the third floor of the Marshall County Historical Museum. Ludie Bough’s mother was killed in a tornado in Holly Springs and her father, Harry Bough, became the mayor of Memphis in 1857. Little Ludie was sent to live with the Eddie Francisco family because her father said he couldn’t run Memphis and keep her, too. In 1860, Mary Louise Bough etched her name in the window pane that now is in the third floor window at the museum. Ludie used her diamond ring to etch her name on the glass while sitting in the McCarroll Place. Her etching inspired the world renowned fiction writer William Faulkner of Oxford to include her story in several of his books. The window was donated to the museum by Dr. and Mrs. Edgar W. Francisco III.


Thursday, July 7, 2011
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