Ager House Resource Library Grand Opening
June 20 – 22 , 2008

EAU CLAIRE, June 20, 2008— Midsummer’s Eve began a three-day celebration at the Ager House to commemorate the opening of the Ager House Resource Library on the second floor. Volunteers worked at a fast pace to make sure the library was completed for the open house and the other events held at the house during Midsummer Weekend.

Volunteers finished the wood floors, installed the wood trim, and painted the different areas as well as built the bookshelves and installed lighting fixtures.

Over the past two months, the members of the Ager Library Committee and other volunteers have been sorting, cataloging, and shelving books and manuscripts for use by members of the Ager Association and the general public.

The celebration kicked off on Friday, June 20, at the Chippewa Valley Montessori school, with "Glimpses into my Grandfather's Scrapbooks," a presentation by Barbara Bergh Culver of her 1956 research into her grandfather Ager's life and work, as well as her personal recollections of him.


Barbara Bergh Culver speaks to an audience about Waldemar Ager

Ager Association president Ken Ziehr noted that summer 2008 marks the 15th year of the group that formed to preserve the Ager house, and the library opening was the realization of a major goal—to bring together unique materials by and about Ager and about immigrant culture in the Chippewa Valley and make them available to the community. Ziehr thanked all volunteers and donors, including the Genevieve and Harold Hagen family, The Mary Koehler/ Windway foundation, Johanna Shager-Hocker and Vicki Finstad, who all made major contributions to complete the library and fund its electronic technology needs.

Reception

Following Culver's presentation, guests attended an open house at the Ager House Resource Library, where they were free to tour the renovated house and the new library upstairs.

Ager's typewriter in its spot in his first-floor study.Visible behind Ager's portrait is a lamp given to him by his wife in 1927. Ager wrote to a son, "The lamp is a `gooseneck' and can also be used as a fish-pole; when the light turns on, it's a sign a fish is biting."

Guests enjoy coffee while exploring the house's first floor, restored as it looked in the 1920s.

Ager's study, where he wrote, contains the original book cases, his book collection, portraits of his children, furniture and the Munkáczy painting that inspired Ager's 1910 novel, Kristus for Pilatus.

The dining room, with wallpaper and plate rail restored much as it looked in the 1920s.

Guests inspect one of the library rooms. Reform's masthead is visible behind them.

Another view of the parlor

Ager granddaughters Karren Bloom (first from left) and Barbara Culver (third from left) sit with others in Ager's study.

View down the hallway of the second-floor library

Photographs are displayed in what was once the master bedroom

Computers eventually will store searchable archives of various types and connect to the internet.

A desk once belonging to Norwegian labor agitator Marcus Thrane stands in what was once the Ager boys' bedroom.

Costumes and a trunk that Ager brought with him from Norway in the 1880s are a few of the artifacts housed in the library

More information about the Ager House Resource Library

More information about the Ager House