Interview with Anna R. Ingram

CAROLYN CRABTREE: This is Carolyn Crabtree. I am here at the McDowell House and Apothecary with Anna Ingram who works here. The date is October 21, 2009 and the time is 1:30. Anna, I thank you so much for doing this interview for us. I'll ask you a little bit about yourself first. How long have you been working here at the McDowell House.

ANNA INGRAM: A little bit over 10 years.

CRABTREE: And what is your job here?

INGRAM: Well it's kind of a mixture of things. I'm called an administrative assistant, but I do bill paying, I do inventory input in a program called Past Perfect on the computer, and tours when I'm needed.

C: You're a "Jack of All Trades." I have interviewed several of the people who 1:00work here and they all tell me that it's part of the job, doing various things. Well let me ask you, did you come to the McDowell house from another job?I: No, I retired from Farmer's Bank in 1999, the end of June, and I started here at the beginning of September in that same year.

C: How did you learn to do the recording for the inventory?

I: Well, we had some college students working on it and I kind of picked up a few things from them. I helped them when they were doing the inventory and doing the input on computer, and I just picked it up. After their job was finished, then I started doing it on my own.

C: Tell me a little bit about some of the artifacts you have here and how you keep track of what is on loan, versus what belongs to you here at the McDowell House.

I: First of all, we try very hard not to accept things on loan. I think anything that might have been accepted, and I understand there are very few things in that category. It's very hard to keep track of things when you have them on loan. Our Past Perfect program does that, but as far as I know, we don't have anything on loan.

C: Everything is owned by the McDowell House?

I: If not, then it's just a couple of things.

C: How is it that people find out about the McDowell House and bring things to you? Are most of the donors family members?

I: Most of the people are family members; some of our board members bring things, and then every once in awhile people in the community will have someone 3:00think of McDowell House when they find something they think is old enough to give to us.

C: So how many things here would you say actually belonged to the McDowell House, versus the things that were of the period and are representative of what belonged to the McDowell House? Do you have any idea?

I: Are you referring to things that were here originally?

C: Yes, things that would have belonged to McDowell House.

I: Things that have been given back to us through family members would not be very much compared to the things that McDowell house actually bought when they refurnished the house in the 1930s when it was restored. Most of the furnishings that we got then were found by the Woman's Alliance. The doctors of Kentucky had 4:00the House restored and then they turned to their wives and asked them to find things that represented the period when the McDowells would have lived here, so most of our things do date back to then.

C: Are there things still in the house that were bought by these Doctor's wives in that time period?

I: Most of the stuff that we do have does belong back to that period when they refurbished the house.

C: What are some of the things that have been donated to the House by the family?

I: Since I've been here we've had Sarah's pianoforte given back to us by a family member. We've had Dr. McDowell's miniature ivory painting. We've had -- I'm having a hard time remembering,

C: That's fine. You've had some of the dishes, I believe.

I: Some of the dishes have come. We had some of them in the beginning but some of Dr. McDowell's china has been given back to us; plus, we have a picture up in the children's room of Florence the Beautiful, who was Dr. McDowell's granddaughter, that has come to us since I've been here, too.

C: Was that the name of the painting?

I: That was the name of the girl, Florence the Beautiful. By the way, we have a little book. I have done an inventory on most of the books here in the House that had not been done before and I did find a little book that was given to Florence by her teacher for perfect attendance or something of that sort when she was in school. So I thought that was really neat that we had her picture and the little book that was given to her.

C: Where was she in school, do you know?

I: I don't know. I know that she was born at Cambus-Kenneth. Her father was Dr. 6:00McDowell's only surviving son, and I know they moved to St. Louis when she was very young. I would assume, unless she was schooled at home, that she went to school in St Louis.

C: I've often wondered where these girls went to school because they seemed to be very well educated; the Shelby girls as well. I've always wanted to ask and find out where these girls possibly went to school. It seems unusual that girls of that period would have been as well educated as sons of that period.

I: I don't know the answer to that question. Alberta would probably know because I've not had time to dig into it as much.

C: I've asked her; she doesn't know either. Well, what is your favorite part of 7:00the job?

I: My favorite part, I always enjoyed giving tours and meeting people from different parts of the United States and other countries when they come here. It kind of goes back to when I worked at the bank for 25 years and I did new accounts and everything. I really enjoyed meeting the people and listening to their stories and how they interpret things that we tell them, so I enjoy doing that sort of thing at the House.

C: What percentage of the visitors would you say would be doctors or in the medical field?

I: That come to see us? I'm not sure I know the answer to that question. Many of 8:00the people will say, "I'm in nursing," or "I'm a doctor," or "I'm in pharmacy," or something of that sort but I would say just guessing I'd say, maybe one half or less than one half that come are interested in medicine in some form.

C: Are you still under the protection of the medical association?

I: They still do some funding for us but as far as owning the House like they did back in the early beginning, they don't own the House. They just give us a certain amount of funding every year.

C: Who does own the House?

I: It is a 501c3 organization, non-profit and it's governed by a board of directors.

C: So it's owned by an association.

I: Yes.

C: What is involved in keeping, protecting the artifacts in the House?

I: Well, there're several things -- we have to be careful about the light, not have too much light in the rooms. We do guided tours only; we don't allow self-guided because the way we're set up there's no protection from anyone picking things up, or whatever as they go through the House. Some places like Shaker Village you can only go to the doorway and look inm but we do guided tours, which gives people an up front and personal tour. They feel like they're really part of it, I think, by doing it that way. We have to be careful about the heat and humidity. We have a security system; when we're not here that security system protects the house and the furnishings.

C: I know you do a lot of school tours.

I: Yes.

C: How do you manage to arrange so that you don't have too many children in here at the same time?

I: We usually don't have more than 50 children at a time and that allows us to set them up in groups of ten or twelve so that we're not overly crowded in the room. Usually there is a teacher or an escort with the children. We don't allow backpacks, food or drink, anything like that in the house so we try to monitor what's going on and have small groups so we can kind of keep an eye on everything.

C: Now, I know that my own granddaughter enjoyed here tour so much that she is very partial to the McDowell House even today. Why do you think something that is so historic and so adult is so appealing to children, as it seems to be?

I: I don't know, I hadn't thought about it before. I don't really know. I know I myself was taken by the House when I first came, just the experience of being here and hearing the story and actually feeling like you're walking on the floors where Dr. McDowell walked and you're just personally connected with him, I think.

C: Do you feel like this is something that is missing to some extent in children today? That they are looking for a connection to the past to have a history of themselves and their community in any way?

I: I think we're all that way children and adults. Because you know yourself, 12:00doing genealogy, how into genealogy a lot of people are these days, even children.

C: We seem so disconnected, to me it seems like, until you do get into it an experience like this with the history of the house and the people who lived here before. Just your basic fundraising, do you have anything to do with that or is that done by other people to keep this going?

I: That's done mainly by the board members and Carol our director. My part in that would be addressing envelopes and putting stickers on envelopes and folding and getting things ready to go to the post office. I also take care of the deposits when hopefully those funds do come in. So, I do have a little bit to 13:00play in that part but as far as thinking of people to send requests to, that's mainly the board and Carol take care of that.

C: Now, what is involved in the administrative assistant part of your job? I mean, I know this is part of it, but what else is involved? Do you, do you do payroll and taxes?

I: I do payroll. I do taxes. I pay bills. Carol okays the bills and then I pay them. That's basically it.

C: So you do give the checks to the other people who work here and things like that?

I: Yes.

C: You also perform this same function, to some extent, of taking care of artifacts down at the Forkland Community Center and you've been working down there. How has working here helped you with what you're doing down there? I know you're volunteering down there.

I: Really what I'm doing down there is basically helping other people in the museum record things. I don't know the history behind a lot of the things they acquire at the Forkland Museums. So Shirley or Wayne kind of dictate to me and I write down what they say. We've come up with a numbering system for our artifacts down there that's completely different from what I do here.

C: Really?

I: We just kind of came up with our own thing down there. The Past Perfect Program that I'm using here allows you to put all kinds of information into it and you can sort it back by the artifact itself or the donor or there're all kinds of ways of sorting it. Down there, so far, about the only thing we've done is just list it and give it a number, so we don't have a way to sort yet. We're going to have to work on that and do something different with the stuff we have there.

C: I have put that into an Excel file which allows you to do that. So it is possible for us to do it but we just need to get the rest of it in there, don't we?

I: Oh, we've got lots of things recorded already.

C:So I need to get those lists.

I: We just don't have them in a computer yet.

C: This building was the home of Dr. McDowell and his wife, but he also owned a farm called Cambus-Kenneth.

I: Yes.

C: Is that part of the home property or anything like that? How is that functioning right now?

I: Cambus-Kenneth is in private hands. Right now it's owned by Mr. and Mrs. Michael Burns and it's a completely separate entity from McDowell House itself. When Dr. McDowell lived here that was part of his property, like you said. And at one point I think it was left so that we could have acquired it, but I don't think we could have afforded to keep that property and keep it up like other occupants and owners had through the years.

C: That property is under is under the national trust though, isn't it? What does that mean exactly being a part of the national trust, as far as protecting that property?

I: You know, I'm not really sure. I don't know that much about it.

C: I know that we have been able to take tours out there in the past and show them the building where he had his medical office out there and things like that, even though it's on private property.

I: I think you pretty much have to get permission though.

C: You can't go into the house, but you can go onto the property, I think.

I: I'm not familiar with that part of it at all.

C: Wasn't it under the ownership of Cecil Dulin Wallace at one time?

I: It was.

C: Did you know her?

I: I knew her slightly; my husband's father called her cousin Cecil Dooley so I 18:00don't know if there was a distant relationship or not. I never knew that for sure but he called her cousin.

C: Would you like to tell us, do you know enough about it or would you like to tell us about her as far as a preservationist?

I: I know that she that she was very active in preserving things. I know that she also was interested in the Perryville Community. As far as what she actually did I don't know that much about that.

C: I'll have to find out about her sometime.

I: Yeah. And it could be that Alberta could tell you a little bit more about her.

C: Really? Now each Christmas you have an open house here. Would you like to tell us what happens when you have your open houses?

I: Well, what we mainly do is the Garden Club decorates the House every 19:00Christmas very early December or late November. And they have a Green Tea. Usually just before or just after their Green Tea we have an open house for our docents and friends who have helped us through the years, just different acquaintances and people we want to thank for visiting us and things that they've done for us through the year. The board usually meets earlier in the day and we have a complete open house with all kinds of refreshments and food for everybody.

C: How many board members do you actually have?

I: I think about 20, 22.

C: Are most of these doctors?

I: A lot of them are doctors. We do have other people who are just interested in preservation.

C: About the preservation of the house -- when was it done and who did most of the preservation on the house?

I: Most of the preservation was done in the 1930s when the KMA or the doctors of Kentucky bought the house and had it restored. Before they bought the house, -- well, let's go back to the beginning. Dr. McDowell died in 1830. He had already written a will. In his will he wanted his widow to sell the house if anything happened to him. So she did. She sold it and moved to Cambus-Kenneth where she could be more self-sufficient with the farm and all that. This house belonged to several people during the next 100 years: a Methodist minister, a Centre College person, and, somewhere along the line, it got in disrepair and was turned into a 21:00boarding house. It was in this area of town that was not like it was when Dr. McDowell lived here. It was -- I'm searching for the word and I'm not sure what word to use for it, but anyway--

C: Depressed?

I: Depressed area. Anyway, the doctors of Kentucky became interested in the house because Dr. McDowell did so much for the medical field that they wanted to preserve it and turn it into a museum. When they got around to doing that it was a boarding house and it had twelve families living in it.

C: Twelve families?

I: And it was really in bad shape, so they used the WPA to do the restoration and that was when it was turned into a museum and has been ever since.

C: That was in the 1930's?

I: Yes.

C: What kinds of renovations have been done to the house since then?

I: I'm not sure what was done before I came but since I have come to the house we've had geo-thermal heating and air-conditioning put in. I know back in the late 1950s the apothecary shop was restored and I'm not sure what all was involved then. I know that it was in bad shape because that part of the house had been used as a barber shop and a saloon and different things. It was in terrible shape. From the 1930s till the 1950s, I guess it really deteriorated. So they had to take it apart piece by piece and put it back together.

C: Really?

I: So it's reconstructed, whereas the house is pretty much like it was when Dr. McDowell lived here. The geo-thermal system that was put in about three or four years ago has helped with the consistent heating and air-conditioning. It's helped with our humidity problems. We had had lots of water in the basement before then and they redid the drainage of the backyard into the sewer system so that we don't have that much water in the basement anymore. That was really causing a problem for the foundation of the house and also it wasn't helping with the humidity problems, either.

C: Didn't you have a new roof put on recently?

I: Not yet; we're working on monies to do that right now. In fact, just about a 24:00month ago there was a fundraiser at Cambus-Kenneth to earn monies or to acquire monies for a new roof which they hope to do pretty soon. They're looking into the possibility of copper or wood shingles. Wood shingles is what we have right now.

C: Do you have any kind of pictures or artifacts, or documents that would tell you what they did when they first built the house so that you could go back to that to see how to make it authentic, the way it was in the beginning?

I: We do have a listing of some materials when they were adding onto the house when the house was first built, the back part of the house, that was in the 1790s and I'm not sure if anything exists then. And I'm not real sure if there's 25:00anything that tells us exactly what Dr. McDowell did to the front of the house. I know Donald Hill did some historic structures reports back, like in the 60s or 70s. I'm not sure when that was, but I do know we have those documents. And I don't know. I've not had time to read and see if there's any information about the very beginning or not. Carol or Alberta probably have had more time to look into that than I have.

C: Now, in your keeping up with the inventory of the artifacts and all that in the building have you found anything that's very unusual or different than you expected to find or do you have any nooks and crannies in the place which all of the sudden you find some interesting things?

I: Well, I'm glad you asked that because yes, I did find the original guest book when the museum was open in the 1930s. I think it was 1939 and at that time it 26:00was a state institution then, because it was done by the KMA or the Kentucky Medical Association. I did find the first original guest book and I've been able to track that all the way from the opening to the present.

C: Really?

I: We have all the guest books.

C: Really?

I: Yes.

C: All of them?

I: Yes.

C: That's interesting.

I: I can take you right to the very place they are.

C: Where did you find them?

I: I found the original guest book over in the book cupboard in the very bottom, in the back, where there were no other books, they were wrapped in a dark plastic and nobody knew they were there.

C: Oh, my goodness.

I: Or at least nobody presently here knew they were there so that was exciting to me to find that.

C: What else have you found? Didn't you find this logbook, or did somebody bring 27:00this to you?

I: This book that's on the desk was found in the house sometime during the restoration, I'm not sure when. But the book you're referring to was the 1819-1820 book that we think belonged to someone who had a general store. It's handwritten with quill pen and ink and it's the way they kept track of their customers back then, not with computers like we do now, but with a ledger where everything is actually written down, the name of the customer, what they bought, how much they paid for it, and the date they bought it, so it's very interesting.

C: And it goes back to what year?

I: 1819.

C: So, who's in the book that we would know of?

I: Oh, I could read you a whole list.

C: Give us a few.

I: Well I can go to it and read you some right now, but we see the McDowells, and we see Barbees and we see all kinds of Aikens and Crutchfields, and it just goes on and on and on. It's just amazing to see all the people from historical things that we've read that are actually listed in this book.

C: Have you allowed, since I love genealogy so much, have you allowed anyone to come in and get the names from that and put them in a list so that people could know that their people were here in that time period?

I: As far as I know, since I've been here, nothing like that has happened. I started a list myself on the computer. But there were so many other things to do, I kind of let it slide. And I haven't kept it up.

C: Would you allow someone like me to do that?

I: I'm not sure; you'd have to get permission from Carol.

C: Ok, so these things are possible but we just need to know what to do.

C: How do you preserve the portraits that you have in the building? You have quite a few. Do you do anything in particular to protect those or keep them clean? Do you have people look at them for you to see if they have any problems that need to be taken care of?

I: As far as I know since I've been here nothing has been done but from doing inventory, I have been aware of some records where certain portraits have been cleaned or restored but that was a long, long time ago. I think a lot of the things we have in the house continue mainly because of not doing anything to 30:00them, like trying to keep the light situation down, not touching them. We don't do a whole lot like waxing and all that; we just mainly dust and that's basically it. I think sometimes neglect can preserve things maybe a little bit better than constant attention.

C: That's probably true. I know that your gift shop is small and is there any thought to ever making it any bigger or making it more convenient for people to purchase items in there?

I: My past ten years' experience tells me that people are not buying as many 31:00gifts as they used to. What we mainly try to do is keep books on the history of the house, about Dr. McDowell, some few artifacts like quill pens and cards that they used to play with when they had card games and just, candle holders, that kind of thing that actually seems to relate to the house. I don't think there's any part of the house that we could convert into a gift shop because the way the house is set up it's like the McDowells live here. Where the gift shop is now was Dr. McDowell's office from 1820 until he died in 1830 and at some point they 32:00would really like to turn that back into a Doctor's Office. At that point, I don't know what we do with a gift shop or where we'd even put it unless we acquired another building.

C: Another location?

I: Where we could actually have more space. But I don't think, I think there are too many things like the new roof, and things like that that we need to do that's probably not on the top of our list.

C: Do you keep a genealogy of the family here?

I: Yes. Alberta is our genealogist and she pretty much takes care of any kind of genealogy questions. We do have a book McDowells in America that was written by a McDowell descendant; we order those books from her and we do sell those in the gift shop.

C: Do you make a genealogy available or do you just suggest that they buy those books?

I: We do have a short list of genealogy, it's like 10 or 12 pages, but mainly we 33:00suggest that they buy the book if they're really into it. Alberta will answer questions that she can from the book, but I think that she generally tells them that they can find more information in McDowells in America.

C: Ok. What about reunions? Do family members come back here for reunions and things like that?

I: They have in the past. We haven't had a family reunion for a long time. We've had a couple since I've been here. I don't think they're as well attended as they were at one time. I don't know if lifestyles make it so that people are too busy to come. I know we've lost a lot of McDowell descendants through the years and there's not as many to come as were at one time, but it's really interesting that periodically we'll have a tour and they'll say I'm a McDowell descendant. 34:00So they're still there, and they come for visits but actually a family reunion I think it's pretty hard to get everyone together at one time with their busy lifestyle.

C: When they come here for reunions can they use the house or do they have to have their meetings at another location?

I: It would depend on how many people first of all, because we wouldn't be geared to set up for very many people. We have had some meetings in other locations; we've had little mini-seminars here. Maybe they gather here for a short meal like early breakfast or tea in the afternoon or something like that, but mainly, if there're very many they would meet somewhere else.

C: Do you know of very many McDowell descendants that live in this area at all.

I: I know a few.

C: Do you?

I: Yes.

C: What about Shelbys?

I: Yes.

C: And Harts? Do you know people that are still?

I: Yes. A couple that are around are Shelby descendants, also.

C: I think that probably covers what I needed to talk to you about. And I appreciate your doing this for me. I don't want to keep you from your work all day. Thank you very much, Anna.

I: Thank you.