McClendon Memorial Museum in Duck Springs

Yes, here we are with another advertisement from the old issues of the Gadsden Times I've been going through in recent months. Saved by my paternal grandmother Rosa Mae Wright, most were from the 1930s and 1940s. She also saved a massive Etowah County centennial edition of the paper dated June 23, 1968, where I found this ad.

I wasn't familiar with the McClendon Memorial Museum in Duck Springs, so naturally I did a bit of research. This Facebook post gives a summary. Yancey McClendon was eleven years old when he died in 1963. His parents Eloise and Ralph decided to honor their only child with a museum. Over the years, as noted in the ad, a collection developed of 14,000 Indian artifacts and many other items.

Ralph died in 1989. Eloise continued to operate the museum until her death on February 11, 2002. Unfortunately, she left no will and no other provisions for the collections. An auction was held in 2003. All three family members were buried in the Duck Springs Cemetery. 

A similar museum was Ma'Cille's Museum of Miscellanea in Gordo. This collection was maintained by Lucille House and included many thousands of Native American artifacts and various quirky items as well as others of local history interest. She died on December 31, 1999. The museum had closed in 1994 and contents auctioned in 1998. The place had been around for decades; the New York Times published an article about it 1970. In 2004 45 photographs of the museum were exhibited at the University of Alabama. 

Lucille House was the mother of prolific Alabama artist Glenn House [1931-2014]. He was also director of the Book Arts program at the University of Alabama; Dianne and I met him when we were in library school there in the early 1980s. His first graphic design job resulted in his most famous work, the Moon Winx Lodge sign. 

But I digress. Also below are photographs of a McClendon Museum postcard recently added to my collection, printed by the Scenic South Card Company in Bessemer.