Vintage motorcycles, 19th-century dolls and TV memorabilia are just some of the gems that can be found in the collections of central Ohio’s small museums.

They, along with larger institutions such as the Columbus Museum of Art and COSI Columbus, add cultural value and important educational programs. But the community could lose these unique organizations as they struggle to stay open and relevant amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In November, Thurber House reached a breaking point, launching a $100,000 fundraising campaign to sustain its operations. The Downtown literary arts center, a restored home of cartoonist and writer James Thurber, was able to retain its staff through a payroll protection loan. But program attendance steadily declined when the organization pivoted to all-virtual programming in the summer.

“We did have about 60% of enrollment for (kids summer writing camp) compared to last year, so we were thrilled,” said executive director Laurie Lathan. “But the summer literary picnics were dismal. The attendance virtually for those was down by over 70% for us, and those two programs are our main programs in the summer.”

The fall season has been disappointing so far, with only a handful of people attending virtual author events, according to Lathan, who also said patrons are exhausted by the online offerings.

“A lot of them are saying, ‘We love you, want to continue coming to programs, but we miss the real-life events,’” Lathan said. “Right now, we are solely dependent on contributed revenue to get us through this pandemic.”

Thurber House isn’t alone. Nearly one-third of museum directors surveyed in October by the American Alliance of Museums reported significant risk of closing permanently in the next 12 months. They also reported an expected loss of 35% of total 2020 budgeted operating income.

A week after Thurber House launched its campaign, the nonprofit was awarded a $70,000 grant from the Ohio Arts Council, which distributed $20 million in federal, economic relief funding to arts organizations throughout the state.

Coupled with the organization’s fundraising efforts, the grant will put Thurber House over its goal, but all museums still face hardships depending on the length of the pandemic and availability of a vaccine. For instance, even if Thurber House returns to in-person programming, it may not be able to operate at the same capacity level, given social-distancing requirements, Lathan said.

“Thurber House is the only organization in the region that does what we do,” she said. “We appreciate everything that the community has done for us in the past, and we look forward to continuing our programs and providing more education for kids in the literary arts.”

Youth education programs are also a major offering of the Central Ohio Fire Museum Downtown, which hosts fire safety classes. Following the government-mandated shutdown, the museum re-opened in June with increased safety precautions, but overall attendance is down 60 to 70%, according to executive director Michael Shimko.

“October was a pretty good month for us,” he said. “It was kinda like somebody flipped a switch and people started coming. I think people are tired of being told to stay home and they want to get out.”

However, he said attendance decreased again in November. The museum offers virtual classes and tours, but Shimko prefers to have people see the building, a 1908 firehouse that once accommodated horses.

Shimko also said the museum has been able to stay afloat because of contributions received from the central Ohio firefighters’ payroll deduction program.

“That accounts for about 65% of our budget, which is a pretty good chunk, so we’re lucky,” he said. “It’s kept the doors open. … But we can’t go on like this forever.”

Organizations such as the Ohio Craft Museum near Grandview Heights have found that gift shop purchases have helped with financial sustainability. After re-opening in the summer, the museum saw a new trend among patrons.

“They wanted to purchase (items),” said communications coordinator Kim Nagorski. “They weren’t really here to see the exhibitions, which is different for us. … It was very strange.”

Nagorski added that experiments with virtual exhibitions, social-media advertising and email marketing have also paid off. And they are thinking about adding an e-commerce platform to keep up with sales.

The Kelton House & Garden Downtown also reported a surprising and helpful outcome amid the pandemic; they received even more wedding requests than last year.

“People were looking for a small venue, they were looking for an outdoor venue and they were looking for somebody very flexible,” said executive director Sarah Richardt.

Richardt said people were calling consistently for house tours, and their ghost tours in October also sold out.

“People were so excited to do something in person,” she said.

In late November, the Kelton House temporarily shut down amid the increase in COVID-19 cases, with plans to re-evaluate in December. In the meantime, Richardt is working on its educational tours for students, which have been postponed.

“It’s a huge blow financially to us,” said Richardt, who is working on plans to properly wire the brick building to strengthen its Wi-Fi connection to host virtual tours.

But she is eager to get children back into the building when it’s safe.

“There’s nothing like walking in the museum and smelling it and seeing it,” she said. “You can look at a whole bedroom set, but really what you want to see is the fan on the side table because that’s what you’re interested in. … It’s so great to have that wonderful, positive experience in a museum and I don’t want children to lose that.”

ethompson@dispatch.com

@miss_ethompson

Since 2012, Leslie Blankenship has portrayed Columbus suffragist Belle Coit Kelton throughout Ohio. Today, her presentations are especially timely as the country celebrates the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote — and prepares for a new presidential election.

For 71-year-old historian Leslie Blankenship, becoming an early 20th-century suffragist is a multifaceted process.

First, there is the wardrobe. She searches antique stores and secondhand shops for hoop skirts and wide-brimmed hats, sometimes with feathers.

Then, there is learning the language of the times, such as “23 skidoo,” a popular way of telling someone to scram.

Most important, though, you have to understand the subject.

“I try to be empathetic and reach into people and tell the story,” said Blankenship, who lives in Brown Township, west of Hilliard.

That’s not hard for the Dayton native, who remembers hearing a story about her grandfather forbidding her grandmother to vote.

″(He) would take the car and go into town and vote and leave my grandmother home,” Blankenship said. “But the people on the farm next door would pick her up and take her to vote.”

It was only natural that Blankenship’s passion for history and women’s rights would lead her to impersonate someone such as Columbus suffragist Isabella “Belle” Coit Kelton. Audiences have seen Blankenship in character at historical societies, community centers and the Kelton House Museum & Garden Downtown, where she is on the education committee.

A former stop on the Underground Railroad, the Kelton House was built in 1852 by abolitionist Fernando Cortez Kelton and his wife, Sophia. Their son, Frank, married Belle Coit Kelton in 1883, and they lived in the home for several years.

Blankenship’s impersonation dates back to 2012, but celebrations over suffragists and their efforts are particularly ramping up now as the United States celebrates the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote. The 19th Amendment was ratified in most states in 1919 — on June 16 in Ohio — and officially adopted on Aug. 26, 1920.

These commemorations include the Women of the Century project by the USA TODAY Network, which will highlight more than 500 women from the past 100 years as the centennial approaches.

Blankenship said presentations such as hers are especially timely as the country approaches another presidential election.

“I think people don’t realize how hard it was to get the right to vote and how much the women had to put up with,” she said. “I think they need to hear that story. We take voting for granted.”

Her subject, Kelton, was born on Nov. 26, 1855, and grew up in a house Downtown on the corner of Third and Rich streets. Her mother, Elizabeth Greer Coit, also was a suffragist, serving as president of the Columbus Women’s Suffrage Association. According to Blankenship, Kelton’s classmates teased her because her mother wore pants and was “strong-minded.”

But Kelton eventually followed in her mother’s footsteps — and worked alongside her. She was part of the first class of women to attend Ohio State University — then called the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College — in 1874. She served as president of the Franklin County Women’s Suffrage Association, which later became the League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Columbus.

She is most known for helping to organize Ohio’s first women’s suffrage parade on Aug. 27, 1912. It took place in Columbus ahead of the Ohio Constitutional Convention in September. Updates to the state constitution were being considered, and an amendment for women’s suffrage was on the ballot.

About 100,000 spectators watched approximately 5,000 women march Downtown from the intersection of Grant Avenue and Broad Street to the Ohio Statehouse. Though the amendment was defeated, Kelton lived to see the ratification of the 19th Amendment eight years later. According to her obituary, Kelton voted well into her 90s and died in 1956, days before her 101st birthday.

Wearing a maroon dress and hat — and speaking in the first person — Blankenship discussed this and more last fall with an audience at Mount Carmel Health’s von Zychlin Healthy Living Center in Franklinton. She placed Blankenship’s life in the broader context of the women’s suffrage movement, and also took a moment to lecture her listeners.

“It took us 144 years to get this political equality,” she said. “You should take advantage of it.”

Cathy Nelson, founder of Friends of Freedom Society, an organization that explores the history of the Underground Railroad, said she always learns something new from such presentations.

“This is probably my fifth time seeing Leslie, and I come all the time because, as you can tell, she was so knowledgeable,” said Nelson, 67, of the Far East Side.

Also in the audience was Kelton House docent and former manager Lanna Blue, another longtime fan.

“Leslie is an amazing woman,” Blue said. “She researches these things so carefully and then presents them so well. It’s like discovering a whole new person each time.”

Blankenship, who also is chairwoman of the education committee at the Franklinton Historical Society and a member of the Ohio Local History Alliance and Friends of Freedom Society, is modest about her talent.

“I’ve never taken acting in college,” she said. “I was too shy and I really don’t like public speaking either. But I’ve gotten used to it.”

Blankenship graduated from Southwest Missouri State with a degree in education and took graduate coursework in history at Ohio State. She went on to work as a writer at CAS (formerly Chemical Abstracts Service) for nearly 40 years. After retiring, she immersed herself in the local history scene.

Before portraying Kelton, she impersonated Mary Brown, wife of Ohio-born abolitionist John Brown, because she was touched by her story.

And one time, just to stretch herself, Blankenship tried a role outside her comfort zone.

“I played a woman who was a segregationist, just to try it,” she said. “But I flipped her personality a little bit to try to make her not as bad as she was.”

Kelton is a better fit for Blankenship, who admires the suffragist’s tenacity.

“She was out there on the front lines the whole time and she had four kids,” Blankenship said. “She (also) had to take care of her family.”

Blankenship will continue to portray Kelton throughout 2020, making appearances in March at both the Powell United Methodist Church and Southeast Ohio History Center in Athens.

And central Ohio will be celebrating the anniversary of the 19th Amendment in many ways. Both the Kelton House and League of Women Voters of Metropolitan Columbus, for example, are hosting programs in the spring.

Nina Thomas, manager of the Westerville History Center and Museum, said the organization will provide a relevant talk in May, and host the Ohio Chautauqua, featuring a women’s suffrage theme, in June.

Thomas also is a fan of Blankenship, who presented a program for the organization last year.

“It was just inspiring,” Thomas said. “It really encouraged me to want to fight for my right to vote and continue that legacy. … We don’t really realize what these women went through, the torture that they went through emotionally and physically just to get us the chance to go to a ballot and vote for who we want to vote for.”

Host Javier Sanchez visits the Harrison House Bed & Breakfast to visit with local author and ghost expert, Nellie Kampmann, who reveals some of the most notable haunts around Columbus.

For more than 30 years, the “Ghosts of Town-Franklin Tour” has provided history lessons and scares in the historic Downtown district. The next event takes place Wednesday, Oct. 30.

When Andrea Morbitzer moved into her home Downtown on Franklin Avenue more than three years ago, she received an unexpected visit as she carried items up the steps.

“I swear someone was behind me,” she said.

Appearing to sense the same presence, her dog, George, glared down from his perch at the top of the steps. Without turning around, Morbitzer, 60, threw her elbow back in self defense.

She didn’t make physical contact with anyone, but she and her daughter quickly decided they weren’t alone in the house. They picked up on a “male energy” and the ghostly presence of a little girl, who they say lives in the backyard.

Things only got stranger later that year when she saw a group of figures approaching her property with lanterns. Morbitzer quickly discovered, though, that these figures were real-life people on a ghost tour, and she regaled the group with tales of her own otherworldly experiences.

“This is a special neighborhood, that’s for sure,” Morbitzer said.

The neighborhood is Town-Franklin — named for Town Street and Franklin Avenue — and the “Ghosts of Town-Franklin Tour” has been hosted by Columbus Landmarks for more than 30 years. The next tour kicks off at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Topiary Park gatehouse.

Over the course of two hours, participants walk through the historic area, which once was a thriving enclave of well-to-do residents in the 19th century. Taking in the myriad architectural styles among the houses — including Italianate villa, French Second Empire and Chateauesque — is like traveling back in time.

“It represents everything atmospheric about Halloween and fall,” said Doreen Uhas Sauer, who is in charge of education and outreach at Columbus Landmarks, which promotes and preserves area landmarks and neighborhoods. “Our (tour) is a little bit of history and a little architectural gossip, and nothing we ever made up, seriously. They were stories that came to us, and we have just repeated them.”

The little girl allegedly haunting Morbitzer, whose home is not part of the tour, may or may not be the same one sometimes spotted in a hallway at the Kelton House Museum & Garden, 586 E. Town St., which is highlighted by Columbus Landmarks.

“When she turns around, she has no eyes,” said Uhas Sauer, who has collected stories from Town-Franklin residents, building owners and others spending time in the area over the years.

The Kelton House, built in 1852 by dry goods merchant Fernando Cortez Kelton, is a Greek Revival and Italianate house that has been the residence of multiple generations if the family, including noted suffragist Belle Coit Kelton and interior decorator Grace Kelton, who once worked for Jacqueline Kennedy.

Though more information about who the little girl might be is unknown, the ghost of Fernando Cortez Kelton’s son, Oscar, has been identified. He served in the 95th Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War and was killed in battle in Mississippi. Oscar Kelton haunts the garden and has been seen smoking outside, according to stories people have told Uhas Sauer.

Other stops included on the tour are the Snowden Gray Mansion, built in 1852 at 530 E. Town St.; and the former site of Players Theatre Columbus, founded in 1923 on Franklin Avenue.

According to Columbus Landmarks volunteer Kylie Smith, tour participants who don’t know each other sometimes will tell the same ghost story or report the same experiences related to particular stops.

“That’s when I start to think, ‘OK, there’s really something going on,’” she said.

Guests have shared some of their own general thoughts about ghosts as well.

“I’ve learned about ghosts that ride you, that try to suck the breath out of you,” Smith said.

Someone once told her that a ghost will leave only if its clothes are packed up and transported in a moving van.

“And there are no ghosts in mobile homes,” Smith said. “You pick up all this crazy stuff after a while.”

Because the event has been operating for so long, it has attracted regulars, some of whom attend multiple tours hosted by Columbus Landmarks, which include a “Haunted Spirits Tavern Tour” and an “Autumn Walk at Green Lawn Cemetery.”

Ultimately, the experience is more about exploring the neighborhood, learning history and enjoying a fun night out than experiencing something supernatural, tour leaders said.

“I would always say it’s kind of like the thinking person’s haunted tour,” Smith said. “If you see a ghost, it’s like an added bonus.”

Kelton House Museum stands as a snapshot of 19th century life in Columbus Ohio. It is a treasure trove of Victoriana, containing everything from lavishly embellished Victorian silverware to unusual items such as a woven-hair brooch worn by Kelton family members.

A scrapbook kept by Anna Kelton from 1860 to 1870 gives a glimpse of what one young woman thought worth saving: pressed flowers from summer vacations, society page articles, news clippings and letters describing Civil War military engagements, and a telegram relating her brother Oscar’s death at the Battle of Brice’s Crossroads, Guntown, Mississippi.

When Grace Kelton died in 1975, her will entrusted the Kelton property to the Columbus Foundation with the stipulation that her family home be preserved and used for educational purposes.

Kelton House grant sustains and offers new programs

After a $10,000 grant, the museum is better than ever

Who could have thought that residents from our city played a key role in fighting slavery? Kelton House Museum & Garden recounts the story of Fernando and Sophia Kelton, who risked everything to deliver freedom to runaway slaves. Since 1976, the museum’s lively narration of local heroes’ exploits against slavery has educated adults and students alike.

Its mission continues, as it has recently received a $10,000 grant from the Reinberger Foundation to bolster its educational programs.

“We’re honored to receive this grant from the Reinberger Foundation,” says Museum Director Georgeanne Reuter. “The grant will allow the museum to continue to present programs that educate the community about 19th-century life, including the Civil War.”

The funding is significant for the museum’s ability to offer the Underground Railroad program for children.

“Our nominal charge for the program is much less than the actual costs to deliver the program,” says Reuter. “We basically could not afford to offer the program without funding from generous foundations and donors.”

The Underground Railroad Learning Station is the museum’s flagship program and hosts thousands of children each year. It is a three-part tour for children, scheduled in groups – usually comprised of schools, scouts or homeschool students.

For regular visits, the Keltons’ residence is displayed with its vast collection of furniture, paintings, china, crystal, silver and music boxes. A Victorian-inspired garden awaits in the back.

More importantly, attendees get to shadow Fernando and Sophia Kelton and vicariously experience their contributions to the fight against slavery. Assist the family as they clandestinely ferry slaves to Canada and Mexico on the Underground Railroad. Learn the secrets behind the house as it provides refuge to hundreds of freedom seekers as an inconspicuous stop in this network of secret pathways. Join in with bygone Oberlin citizens as they push back against federal marshals and slave catchers trying to reclaim a slave. Kelton House Museum & Garden’s trained tour guides ensure a memorable depiction of these heritage moments.

Those who have already walked in the Keltons’ footsteps may find interest in the museum’s special events. The Reinberger fund allows the museum to offer a historic lecture in Ten Thousand Feet for Freedom: Ohio’s First Women’s Suffrage Parade on July 21. The program recounts the genesis of the most impressive demonstration for woman suffrage the state has ever seen.

The museum is a service of the Junior League of Columbus, which is a non-profit organization empowering women as agents of change in the community. It refurbished the ancestral house and turned it into a garden museum in 1976. The organization also provides most of the programs offered in the Museum and has been funding it since 2000.

The 1852 mansion built by Fernando Cortez and Sophia Stone Kelton, the Kelton House is now a museum on Town Street in Columbus.

The 1852 mansion built by Fernando Cortez and Sophia Stone Kelton, the Kelton House is now a museum on Town Street in Columbus.

While family members who lived in the home are long gone, there are reports their spirits still live there and keep a watch on the living.

It’s a place where souls of Columbus past, are pictured on the walls but the former residents of the Kelton House may not be as long gone as we think.

“Oh, definitely I’ve had so many experiences personally. I cannot begin to explain, even from a skeptical viewpoint,” Kelton House docent Nellie Kampmann explains.

Nellie Kampmann works at the 166-year-old home of Fernando Cortez and Sophia Kelton.

She also leads ghost tours in the museum, where she dresses the part while sharing her personal interactions with the apparitions.

Like the time she was dusting the phonograph.

“All of a sudden I hear “hhhhh” which is not exactly the noise you want to hear in a haunted house,” she says, “I turned the knob to turn it to off and I still heard it, so the thing has been playing without being turned on at all.”

Nellie’s sure it was the work of a ghost. like the time the lights turned on.

“As I was looking at it the lights were on full blast but the lights weren’t penetrating the room, and then i realized the ghosts was playing a prank on me,” she says.

One of the most common ghost pranks that’s played at the Kelton House, has to do with the dolls. The people that work here say every once in a while they’ll come in and the doll will be flipped over.

“This kind of thing happens so frequently. they’re very playful. They’re having fun with me,” she says.

They’re lucky Nellie is open to their ghostly antics, understanding why they stick around.

“I think because it’s their home and they like it. The first ghost we know about died in the civil war and as far as i can figure he came back to be with his family,” Kampmann says, “We’re visitors in their home.”