Bus-eum visits Oskaloosa Public Library

The Bus-eum made a stop in Oskaloosa this past week.

The Bus-eum made a stop in Oskaloosa this past week.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The Bus-eum made a stop in Oskaloosa on Monday, May 2nd. The stop was made possible by the Friends of the Oskaloosa Public Library.

The Bus-eum is a traveling museum installed in a former school bus. The project is set to outline how Iowans got to be ‘Us’.

This year’s theme is “At Home in the Heartland; Forgotten Stories of How Iowans Got to Be ‘Us.’”

The bus explores how development within the Midwest was different than other regions. Each settlement was built primarily from immigrants from specific regions. For example, locally the Pella community embraces its Dutch heritage, while Story City showcases their Scandinavian roots.

TRACES director Michael Luick-Thrams talked with Oskaloosa News about the stop in Oskaloosa this past week.

The buses that are part of TRACES are there to compliment the larger project “which is securing what we call the last traces of World War II,” says Luick-Thrams.

In 2003, the focus of the project began with Iowa and the Midwest. With the forward march of time, those people involved with WWII have been disappearing, and the ability to share the narrative history has been coming to an end. Even with letters, diaries, and their artwork from that time, there is little left for expanding the documentation of how that time in history impacted us.

Luick-Thrams said that now the focus is shifting towards social history.

The bus-eum stop in Oskaloosa was the first exhibit that focused on Iowa’s social history. “It’s what we do, we bring history to life,” says Luick-Thrams.

Oskaloosa is part of Luick-Thrams personal history, when his family called it home during the 1870’s. “Great-Great Grandpa ran away with the neighbor’s wife, and so he came down here to get away from her angry husband, and his angry wife,” says Luick-Thrams. The family ran the Luick House Hotel in Eddyville, and a butcher shop in Oskaloosa.

For Luick-Thrams, the journey with the Bus-eum began after his time in Germany, and his work with the Peace Crop had completed. He wanted to stay in Germany, so he chose to do so as a student. His agreed-upon doctorate, in order to stay, was to document and write about Nazi’s and German refugees in Iowa. The advisor then helped Luick-Thrams with information needed from the Third Reich.

As they say, the rest is history, and you can learn more about the Bus-eum by visiting their website HERE – http://roots. traces.org/at-home-in-the-heartland.

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