Nan Norcross & Gretchen Small: Co-Editors

Our “No Ropes” Philosophy from 1956 to Today

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Mississippi Valley Quilters wowed guests with their quilting skills

On May 6, 1956—a blustery, rainy Sunday afternoon—crowds waited patiently for hours along Moline’s 11th Avenue for the inaugural open house introducing Butterworth Center to the public. One small boy’s observations about that day captured perfectly Mrs. Butterworth’s intentions: “Mother, this is much better than Mount Vernon; we can go right into all the rooms here; there aren’t any ropes.”

And while there are a few areas of Butterworth Center & Deere-Wiman House we must restrict access to, we’ve worked diligently to expand on this “no ropes” philosophy. When we were founded, “no ropes” meant that almost every room and furnishing would be available for cultural, educational, and charitable events organized by a variety of community organizations. In 2019, “no ropes” means more…reaching out and inviting new members of our

community in ways we hope will break down barriers and make everyone in the Quad Cities feel welcome.

At our first ever Porch Party in September, “no ropes” was in evidence everywhere. We invited local musicians from the indie rock scene, as well as food trucks, to attract their fans to our site. We invited visitors to learn what goes on behind the scenes to clean, preserve, and maintain these amazing buildings and grounds. And we invited guests to head underground to explore the tunnel from Butterworth Center to the Education Center (former garage).

We also understand “no ropes” to mean

actively including new and old friends in what we do. So, we partnered with the Antique Auto Club, Creative Arts Academy of the Quad Cities, Figge Art Museum, Mississippi Valley Quilt Guild, Music Guild, Quad Cities Women in Action, Quad City Yoga Foundation, and Tri-City Garden Club, as well as preservation contractors, to provide activities and displays to share their knowledge with the public. As we’ve done over the last year for major events, we partnered with Moline Public Schools to provide interpreters for Spanish-speaking visitors. We also reached out to our Instagram audience to witness in person the beautiful scenes they’ve enjoyed on

their phones. We closed the event with the William and Katherine Butterworth Awards for Community Service to honor the amazing contributions of local community organizations.

We were thrilled by so many new faces at our Porch Party and look forward to many more years as a community resource and cultural refuge with “no ropes” for everyone.

Stacy KlinglerExecutive Director

“No Ropes”

Under the approving gaze of Katherine Deere Butterworth, Executive Director Stacy Klinger presents a Butterworth Legacy Award to Friendship Force

Tunnel goers get set to head underground

Food trucks braved the rain to feed hungry guests

Tri-City Garden Club members demonstrated fresh flower arranging

Blue Grass music filled the formal Deere-Wiman House Living Room

Party, buildings and grounds staff, along with local preservationists, answered visitors’ questions about caring for historic spaces. Programs – A community that finds joy in learningDid you know? We annually offer arts and culture programming for 10,000 to15,000 school-aged children, families and adults, including concerts, history talks, day camps and family-friendly events. Our goal is to create lifelong learners throughout the community. Did you know? The feedback we gathered from surveys completed by Porch Party goers revealed the following:

• 21% of guests who responded represented the Hispanic community

• 30% of our guests learned we are a community center

• 81% understand why it is important to preserve historic structures

• 83% feel welcome to visit our site and attend programs

• 55% are likely to request to use our site for nonprofit or educational meetings.

That question was posed to guests at our community Porch Party in September to help them better understand the three mission areas of Butterworth Center & Deere-Wiman House: People, Preservation, and Programs.

People – A community that serves one another Did you know? We provide over 200 educational and nonprofit community groups with free reserved spaces—valued at around $350,000 a year—so they can direct more resources to achieving their own mission. We awarded 62 of these groups a Butterworth Legacy Award for partnering with us for at least twenty years.

Preservation – A community that values its heritageDid you know? We care for 50,000 square feet of historic space in four buildings and 13 acres of grounds that are open to the public during daylight hours, seven days a week. At the Porch

Did You Know? Porch Party Feedback

A Word Cloud captures how Community Groups feel about Butterworth Center & Deere-

Wiman House

Spanish interpreters assisted Hispanic guests

Historic photos in the Squash Court introduced guests to staff who served the Butterworths

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• 3:00 – 3:30p – Augustana College Tuba/Euphonium Quartet• 3:30 – 4:00 – Flutists Sarah Lisak and Emma Albers-Lopez• 4:00 – 4:30p – Moline Boys Choir (all musical performances in the Library)

Butterworth Education Center – Corner of 12th Avenue and 7th Street– Tour the former garage, built in 1910 and remodeled in 2009.

• Videos created by the Butterworth Foundation with WQPT Public Television—Uncommon Assets: The Life and Legacy of John Deere and Hidden Treasures: Discovering Butterworth Center and Deere- Wiman House through the Eyes of a Child (first floor squash court)

• Children’s Crafts and Activities – sponsored by WQPT Quad Cities Public Television (main Garage Room)

• Splash Back in History—an exhibit of the story of the Deere-Wiman swimming pool (second floor above entry)

• Hot Chocolate and Spiced Cider (main Garage Room)

• Santa has treats for all youngsters and a free book for the first 400 to arrive. (main Garage Room)

One again, it’s time for families to gather for our traditional 19th Century Christmas at Butterworth Center & Deere-Wiman House. This year, our event falls especially early on the calendar—December 1st, the Sunday just after Thanksgiving. So, mark this early date and bring along any guests you’ll be entertaining over the holiday weekend.

Butterworth Center – 1105 8th StreetThe 1892 home of Katherine and William Butterworth.

• Noon – 5:00p – Cookies & Punch (Dining Room)

• Noon – 5:00p – Check out the self-guided tour program, which will allow you to interact with our rooms and objects. Electronic tablets will be available to share more about the house, its occupants, and much more (second floor Green Room)

• Noon – 5:00p – View Partners in Preservation, a 10-minute film documenting the restoration of the Butterworth historic leaded window (lower level Oak Room)

• 12:30 – 1:30p – Moline High School Chamber Orchestra• 1:30 – 2:30p – Rock Island High School Chamber Singers• 2:30 – 3:00p – Flutists Sarah Lisak and Emma Albers-Lopez

Deere-Wiman House – 817 11th Avenue The 1872 home of Charles Deere, son of John Deere.

• Noon – 5:00p – Enjoy Victorian decorations

• Noon – 5:00p – Charles Wiman’s 1933 Lionel Train Set on display (second floor)

• Noon – 12:45p Slide Trombone Quartet

• 12:45 – 1:15p – Guitarist Brandon Coppinger

• 1:15 – 2:00p – Slide Trombone Quartet

• 2:00 – 2:45p – Pianist Eric Newton, recent solo pianist winner in Ames, IA

• 3:00 – 3:30p – Moline Boys Choir• 3:30 – 4:00p – Augustana College Tuba/Euphonium Quartet (all musical performances in first floor Living Room)

Deere-Wiman Carriage House – 817 11th Avenue just east of Deere-Wiman House on the driveway

• Holiday Children’s Make-n-take Crafts• Josh Wright – Free Caricature Drawings. Plan for a wait while Josh tries to serve as many people as possible

• Xochi Pannell – Face Painting• Hot Chocolate, Cookies and Spiced Cider

Get Ready! Get Set! Smell the Hot Chocolate and Fresh-baked Cookies!

Music at Butterworth Center

April 7, 3:00p & 7:00p

Jarabe Mexicano takes audiences on a joyride through a versatile songbook of Mexican Folk, Rock & Roll, Tex-Mex, Latin Rock, and Reggae-Cumbia selections. Performing on stringed folk instruments with a lively percussion accompaniment, Jarabe’s rich vocal harmonies, in both Spanish and English, delight audiences as they share their deep commitment to family and community.

Evenings at Butterworth Center

March 26, 7:00p

Returning popular speaker and portrayer of historic celebrities Brian “Fox” Ellis treats the audience to a program about affable, young Charles Darwin, who entertained friends at London’s Royal Geological Society with tales of sailing the world on the HMS Beagle and encountering strange creatures on the Galapagos Archipelago. Of course, Ellis will also step into Darwin’s shoes to engage listeners with a discussion of Darwin’s process for developing his ground-breaking theories.

Evenings at Butterworth Center

March 6, 7:00p

Gifted storyteller Reggie Harris shares inspiring stories ranging from personal to historical and cultural. His humanity-based narratives—from the Underground Railroad to the Modern Civil Rights Movement—are sprinkled generously with personal moments that remind us all of some universal life lessons.

Save the Date(s)…2020With a new year on the horizon, watch for a blockbuster lineup of programs for all ages at Butterworth Center & Deere-Wiman House.

These are just a few of the terrific programs you can enjoy in 2020. Others are still in the planning stages, so keep watching for details on coming topics, such as Celebrating the

Ratification of the 19th Amendment and the Suffragette Movement and Movie Palaces of the Quad Cities.

Check our website, butterworthcenter.com, for the latest program updates. Or, if you have specific questions, please contact Gretchen Small at

gsmall@butterworthcenter.com, or at 309-743-2701.

Our recent community Porch Party was a great opportunity to invite the public underground for our first-ever tour of the tunnel that connects Butterworth Center with the Butterworth Education Center, located on the corner of 12th Avenue and 7th Street.

Over 360 eager tunnel goers descended a concrete ramp in the basement of Butterworth Center to wind their way through the narrow 307 ft. passage (that’s about 7 1/2 buses long!) Thanks to stormy weather (we’ll just call it ambiance), folks experienced several minutes without electricity in the tunnel. Fortunately, everyone survived the darkness in good spirits, emerging safely at the other end.

Halfway through the tour, guests encountered one fascinating mechanicalfeature, the 1911 Pump Room that houses a Kewanee Water Supply

The raindrops came fast and furious, but so did the questions posed by inquiring visitors at our Porch Party. At Deere-Wiman House our buildings and grounds staff wore “Ask Me” badges to encourage visitors’ ques-tions about caring for historic homes and their contents. Staff gladly shared the basic cleaning tips and tricks we use to preserve our properties while protecting the environment.

Housekeeper Olga Farfan donned rubber gloves and an apron to show guests a non-abrasive approach to cleaning silver pieces. A simple chemical reaction between aluminum foil and baking soda removes tarnish.

You can use this same method at home (don’t forget to wear rubber gloves!):• Line a small dishpan with aluminum foil• Add about 1 Tablespoon of baking soda• Pour in 4 cups of boiling water• Submerge one silver piece at a time, making sure it touches the foil • Soak for about 10 seconds (or longer for extremely tarnished pieces)• Remove with tongs, rinse, wipe dry, and repeat if needed

Head Housekeeper Bernie Navarro beamed, “It was really fun to hear the ooh’s and ah’s from visitors when they watched tarnished pieces come out sparkling. Many left anxious to try our simple cleaning method on their own grandma’s heirloom silver.”Our staff also offers other environ-ment-friendly cleaning tips about

commercial products. For instance, don’t use spray-on furniture polish, damp-mop floor cleaners, products with abrasive chemicals, or those that boast of orange and lemon cleaning boosters (you know the popular supermarket brands). Instead, try old-fashioned Murphy Oil Soap, still a winner for cleaning wood, stairs, and furniture.

With just a few cleaning tweaks, we can partner to preserve the natural beauty of our homes while treating Mother Nature to a well-deserved breath of fresh air.

Tunnel goers inspect a diagram of the 307-ft. Butterworth passageway

A first-ever glimpse into the Butterworth Center Tunnel

Pro Tip: Never use commercial silver polish or paste on any historic or heirloom surface

Housekeeper Olga Farfan demonstrated environment -friendly silver cleaning

Bernie Navarro explained preservation cleaning methods to Board Member Jim Darby

System pump with a tank measuring 28’ x 7’, capacity 8,050 gallons. We’re not certain about the pump’s original use, but one strong possibility is that it powered an irrigation system to water the Butterworths’ lush gardens and grounds.

Volunteer tour guides reported that our youngest visitors were especially excit-ed about exploring the dimly lit tunnel, undaunted when the lights went out. One said, “How cool is this?” Later, on

a September field trip from Cambridge Elementary School, 36 third graders toured Butterworth Center and Deere-Wiman House, including the tunnels at both houses. One delighted student said, “This is the best field trip ever!”

And that’s always our biggest reward—knowing that our guests, no matter what age, leave with lasting memories and a new appreciation for local history.

This ad from 1911 describes the Kewanee System of Water Supply located in the Butterworth Center tunnel

Gentle Cleaning Preserves Homes and Promotes a Healthy Environment

What Is It About People and Tunnels?

Stacy KlinglerExecutive Director309-743-2700sklingler@butterworthcenter.com

Gretchen Frick SmallProgram Director309-743-2701gsmall@butterworthcenter.com

Nan NorcrossExecutive Assistant309-743-2702nnorcross@butterworthcenter.com

Not-for-profit organizations may reserve free meeting space at Butterworth Center or Deere-Wiman House by calling 309-743-2700 ormeetings@butterworthcenter.com

www.butterworthcenter.com

S T A F F

Sunday, December 1st Noon — 5pCheck out other great programs

at butterworthcenter.com

Butterworth Center & Deere Wiman House800 Block of 11th Avenue, Moline