Current Events

Fall Weekend ”Sneak Preview” Museum Hours!

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Greetings!

Our Museum will be open this weekend (Saturday, October 5 and Sunday, October 6) during all of the “Fall Weekend” festivities from 11am–4pm both days.

At this time, you will have a special opportunity to get a glimpse of our ongoing Museum reinvention, which will be fully complete by Spring, 2025. But in the meantime, two-thirds of the Museum are all-new, including this fabulous display showing off The Sibleyville Oak that was felled in 2020 (special thanks to the Mendon Foundation for donating a slice of the old tree, which was finished by our very own Larry Titus)…you don’t want to miss this special “sneak preview” opportunity!

 

 

2024 Exhibit Rotation: Revised Museum Hours

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Dear Historical Society Members and History Lovers,

Our visitors have been asking us for quite some time to re-think what is on display in our museum, and how it is displayed. As I mentioned in my 2024 President’s Letter, we’ve started a plan to re-imagine all of our exhibits in the months and years ahead. I am thankful to announce that our volunteers have gained significant steam moving this re-imagination forward.

Visitors to museums of any kind, however, aren’t interested in seeing empty spaces and signs that say “New displays coming soon!” It therefore makes sense for us to do what all museums must do from time to time: suspend our standard public hours until we are finished with our exhibit rotation. This does not mean that we are closed! We remain committed to our mission to be a resource for the community, and if you wish to visit the museum for research projects, we ask that you reach out to Interim Curator Bill Lane at 585-694-8236 to schedule a time to visit during our Wednesday morning work hours, when our volunteer staff will be available to guide you to what you need.

Our current plan is to resume limited public operating hours (Sundays, 2-4pm) starting in late August, 2024, with a grand reopening in late Winter or early Spring 2025. This date is subject to change, so please check back here and on Facebook for the latest updates.

We look forward to celebrating our new exhibits with you…really soon!

Cheers & regards,

Drew D. Saur
President

Seeking HF and HF-L Class Photos for 1948, 1953 and 1973

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The museum has recently inventoried its collection of HF and HF-L class photos and found we are missing 1948, 1953 and 1973. Seniors used to have 11×14 class photos given to them as part of their senior photos. We are hoping someone out there with one of those enlargements would be willing to either donate it to the museum or have an enlargement made.

If you can help with one of those three years, please contact Bill Lane, our interim curator, at fallsman43@yahoo.com.

Below is a sample from 2004. Smaller versions of these were given to the seniors.

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Union Star Lodge #320 Centennial Celebration & Tour

On January 4, 2019, the brothers of the Union Star Masonic Temple hosted a special tour of their facility at 3 North Main St. It was well-attended, yet many folks missed the opportunity.

Good news! The brothers are offering a special fundraising event that will include another tour of the facility. This special event will occur on Saturday, November 19, 2022. You can read more and register for the event on the Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel web page.

Here are some photos from our January 4, 2019 event:

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Remembering Sally Gilbert

We’d like to take a moment to honor the memory of Sally Gilbert, who passed away last week at the age of 79.

Sally served us well, with sincere dedication, for many years. Most recently, she was known as our “Postcard Lady,” organizing our annual postcard updates and stewarding our postcard sales throughout the year around town, including at the Festival on the Green and the Honeoye Falls Marketplace.

Sally, thank you for your years of service. You will never be forgotten.

If you would like to donate to the Historical Society per Sally’s wish, please address checks to:

Honeoye Falls-Town of Mendon Historical Society
PO Box 26
Honeoye Falls NY 14472

Sally Gilbert

Welcome to our new web site!

Welcome!

It’s a delight to see you visiting us here on our new web site. Our previous site was a mere single page, hand-coded in HTML, which not only limited its usefulness and appeal; it made it less friendly on mobile devices, and made it a bit of a burden to update.

Our new site is rich with information, and sees a significant boost in readability and usability on mobile devices. Here are some highlights:

  • The new home page is bright and colorful, and features a reproduction of our Provisional & Absolute Charter from the New York State Board of Regents, including a link to a page documenting the important ways we engage with educators. We’ve discovered that few people are aware of our Charter, which drives our mission as an educational institution in our community, hosting students of all ages, with special emphasis on engaging with our local schools on programs for youngsters.
  • On our home page, you will also find a link to our “2022 Gold Seal of Transparency” from Candid (formerly GuideStar), which is designed to provide an assurance of organizational transparency in the way we operate.
  • Our “Monthly Programs” page provides a bookmark able, up-to-date listing of the current year’s programs, as well as an ever-expanding gallery of photographs from past presentations.
  • Our “Museum” page covers the basics of what our museum in Harry Allen Park is all about, including a list of what is available in our gift shop, and several photos to give visitors an idea of what to expect when they arrive. We also have a link to our Museum Collections Policy, which should be useful if you are considering donating historical artifacts to the Society. Have you visited us before? Why not? Come down on Sunday afternoons between 2 and 4 to see what the fuss is all about!
  • A “Schoolhouse” page covers the schoolhouse that we maintain, which is a short walk from our museum in Harry Allen Park. This is a key resource in helping youngsters appreciate the way school used to be held in the past.
  • An all-new “Reference Desk” page that includes a wide variety of resources and links to get you started on your own history projects, whether they be rooted in genealogy or the history of your own home. This page covers the answers to quite a number of our most frequently-asked questions. Expect to see this page increasing in scope in the months and years ahead.
  • “On YouTube” features a number of monthly meetings that we have been lucky enough to record for posterity. Expect to see this page grow in the future as well, on occasions where our guest speakers permit us to record their presentations.
    Our “Blog” serves as a source for news-related items. Bookmark it to stay on top of the latest happenings!
  • Our “Membership” page contains our Current (2022) Membership Application & Program Brochure, as well as those dating back to 2016, as a record of the topics of meetings from our past. Stay tuned for an online membership application for 2023!
  • A “Contact Us” page that connects you not just with our leaders, but with the Town & Village Historians as well.

We’re quite excited to have our new site live. Please make a return visit or two part of your schedule throughout each month to stay engaged with us and our mission. Thank you for supporting the Honeoye Falls-Town of Mendon Historical Society!

For those of you who missed it, here’s my president’s letter from earlier this year. Please read it — it’s still relevant news! We look forward to posting more in the very near future.

—Drew