A visit to the museum
What would the house's special orange file contain?
I felt jittery when I parked my car outside the Riverside Historical Museum, like I’d had one too many cups of coffee. Maybe I had guzzled too much caffeine that morning in nervous anticipation of my visit.
The squat circular building sits smack-dab in the middle of Riverside’s historic downtown. The interior walls are lined with files for most of the village’s homes.
I was hoping to find proof that the home was designed by a certain famous architect. Really anything I could learn about the house would make the trip worthwhile.
The museum volunteer working that day was enthusiastic about my project. He was a Riverside resident and also researching his home.
He pulled the Akenside house file, remarking that it was orange. This meant it was special. Riverside’s historically significant homes get orange folders, while the other homes have plain manila folders.
The volunteer noted how thick the orange folder was. He brought it to the center table. We dug in.
As we flipped through the file’s contents, I couldn’t help but feel let down. I’d already seen most of the documents. The evidence I’d hoped to find about the architect wasn’t there.
The file contained a couple of gems, such as an old article from a local newspaper featuring my dad. Some photos were new to me. A survey conducted in 1984 seemed interesting.
Yet the file still felt incomplete. So much of my childhood home’s story was missing.
The museum file mostly contained dry facts about building materials and architectural style. It didn’t bring the house to life. There was no mention of the stained glass transom window and only piecemeal information about the 1941 fire.
For a long time, I had trouble articulating why I was so obsessed with researching the house. A friend once asked me, “What are you trying to find?” I didn’t have a good answer. I just knew the house had a magnetic pull on me. I need to find out as much as I could about its past.
It’s probably the same reason many people get deep into ancestry research. To piece together your family story. To understand where you came from.
Joan Didion wrote that a place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively. Many families have lived in that house. Many children grew up there. According to the file it had had six owners before my parents. As far as I can tell, I’m the only inhabitant who has researched it this obsessively.
The house has so many good stories to tell. Who would tell those stories if not for me?
I told the museum volunteer I’d continue my research and add to the file as I uncovered new information. He was kind enough to send me home with copies of everything in the original file.
He even gave me my own orange folder.
More from Betsy
✍️ Want to read more of my writing? Check out my essay on Medium and my op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times.
☕ Want to support my work? Buy me a coffee to fuel my next newsletter.
👉 Follow me on Instagram.