Former opera house items find new home in Monona Museum

MONONA — The Monona Museum has countless items of interest from local history. Something it had been missing, however, were items from the former Wellman’s Opera House.

That changed Saturday when Aaron Nordheim turned several items over to the museum that he found while cleaning both the opera house and the former Wirkler Department Store.

“I was hired to clean it out before the new people that bought it got in there and as I was just throwing things out a couple of things I saw that looked of value that I thought would be worthy of donating and I set them aside,” he said.

“I like old stuff,” he said. “Whenever I’m doing something if I see something really old I usually just set it aside.”

In the past, Nordheim said he had often just kept things he found. Those include old newspapers and a medicine bottle from 1890 that he’s found while cleaning out houses.

“The stuff I donated was because they were local,” he said. “To me it is much more meaningful being in a museum than for me having them in my own personal possession. Now other people can see it and enjoy it and be something for someone to talk about.”

For more of this story see the March 21 Monona Outlook.