Family field trips inspire a Wisconsin museum guide

Anton Rajer quite literally grew up in Wisconsin’s museums.

“My parents loved driving around the state and seeing the sites,” says Rajer, an instructor of arts and liberal studies in continuing studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

“My mother loved history and she often would say to my dad around the supper table, ‘We should visit that place. It will help Tony in school – he can get extra credit.’ And so Wisconsin’s historic sites became part of my family history,” Rajer adds.

Drawing from that personal history, as well as his training as a conservator and historic preservation specialist, Rajer has produced “Museums, Zoo and Botanical Gardens of Wisconsin: A Comprehensive Guidebook” (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006). This new guidebook, out in March, has taken him a lifetime to put together, often with the help of students in his UW–Madison art conservation classes.

The book features photos and descriptions of the more than 400 institutions in the state. He describes the book as a celebration of collections honoring the natural and human-made worlds.

“It’s been a wonderful education to visit the museums, zoos and botanical gardens in this state. I still remember fondly our family trips from Sheboygan to the old Milwaukee Public Museum. I loved the Egyptian mummy exhibits, which I replicated at home in PlayDoh,” Rajer says.

Another family favorite was Old Wade House in the village of Greenbush.

“It was Wisconsin’s second state historic site,” he says. “Old Wade House was given to the State Historical Society in 1953. The dedication ceremony was quite an event, and my parents were in the crowd,” he says. “The Kohler family of Sheboygan and their foundation had saved and restored the building, an old stage coach inn dating from the 1850s. The elder Ruth DeYoung Kohler had done much of the work, raising funds and persuading others to take an interest in the old abandoned hotel. She spent three years working on it, but died right before it opened.

“Because of Mrs. Kohler’s love of Wisconsin history, we have Old Wade House as a historic site,” adds Rajer. “She believed, as I do, that there is a future for the past.”

One of Rajer’s earliest touring memories is set in Green Bay, “when Fort Howard was still downtown, before the creation of Heritage Hill State Park in the 1970s,” he says. “We drove up for the day to see the fort – a real pre-Civil War gem – and the old Neville Museum. While going through the museum, I admired a black beaver hat. My mom talked to the curator, who let me try the hat on. I got my picture taken in it on the museum’s front porch. Unfortunately, I’ve lost that photo, but the memory is very much alive in my heart.”

Rajer began his career as a technician at the Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan. He also was a conservator at the State Capitol between 1988-1993. Today, he still does conservation work, mostly for museums and historical societies. Although he has worked all over the world, the historical and botanical institutions he has found in Wisconsin never fail to impress him.

“What I love so much about Wisconsin’s museums, zoos and botanical gardens is the endless variety we have, from world-class facilities to tiny historical societies chock full of history,” he says. “I hope this book will help people enjoy Wisconsin’s varied heritages in all their forms.

“For me, history is alive in every corner of the state!”