Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Winnie might be a woman undergoing a lot of wonderful changes, but she hoped that this one thing never changed: she loved to make a fuss over a new display.
Yes, yes, her fastidiousness had gotten her in trouble in the past, but never in this regard.
She loved the part where she got to put all the historical artifacts just so, when she got to make sure that every comma was in place for the information plaques, when she turned that comically tiny key in the display case lock so that everything would stay safe and secure for everyone to learn about the people who had come before them.
She sighed happily. She would never understand the people who thought history was boring.
An exhibit on a group of women who had been successful weavers after their husbands died in the Revolutionary War might not be super flashy, but it was interesting.
It was proof of the fortitude of the human spirit!
Winnie gave the display a satisfied nod after one last assessment. Everything looked perfect.
“Hey, Cherry, check this out,” Winnie called, beckoning her coworker over.
Cherry hurried in her direction. “Winnie, I was actually looking for you,” she said. “But wow, the display looks great!”
Winnie grinned. She had never anticipated that she would so enjoy approval from her coworkers. Just another thing that had changed in her life since she’d let her walls down a little.
“Thank you!” she said. “These women were honestly so incredible. They grew up in an era where they were trained, their whole lives, to only work inside the home. And then revolution came knocking, and suddenly they didn’t have their husbands, these people they had always been able to rely upon.
But they had mouths to feed, no matter how much they were grieving, no matter how crazy the world must have seemed.
And so they came together and built a business to support themselves and their kids, even though nobody wanted to think that women could do any such thing. ”
Winnie would have worried that this impromptu speech was a little much, but Cherry was nodding and looking, intrigued, at the display. This was one of the joys, Winnie supposed, of building a closer relationship with her coworkers. They too had started working here because they shared her passions.
“It really is amazing,” Cherry said. “I mean, I remember my own grandmother talking about how hard it was to find a job after my granddad hurt his leg and couldn’t work for a few months.
Even for the short term, nobody wanted to hire her, because they thought she should stay home with her kids.
And that was, what, more than a century after these women made their business work? "
"Not just work,” Winnie said, getting swept up. “It was a success! One of them ended up building the biggest house in Magnolia Shore at the time.”
“Incredible,” Cherry said, bending down to look at the scrap of fabric that was included in the display. “Simply incredible. This is marvelous work, Winnie.”
Winnie blushed with pride.
“Thank you, Cherry. That means a lot. Did you need something from me, though?”
“Oh, right,” Cherry said, snapping up from where she had bent to read one of the placards. “I have these files for you from Lyle.”
Lyle was the head of the Magnolia Shore Preservation Society, which meant that he oversaw both the historical society and the historical buildings register.
He was a professional mentor to Winnie as well as her boss.
She didn’t even know how he kept so many historical details in his head all at once.
But even a great boss occasionally dumped something annoying on their employee’s plate, and Winnie had learned to hold the folders like the ones that Cherry now held with a healthy degree of skepticism.
“Uh oh,” she said. “What’s in the folder?”
Cherry chuckled and handed it over. “It’s about the historical society’s events this year. Lyle said to take an extra look at the documents on the top.”
“Huh,” Winnie said, rifling through the pages. “We aren’t doing the regular stuff? Guest exhibits, speakers, those parties where we give donors hors d’oeuvres and wine and give them a private showing of the events and then remind them that their generous funds help us put those events together?”
Cherry shrugged, her attention wandering back to the new exhibit. “I’m just the messenger, sweetheart,” she said absently. “The details are in the paperwork.”
Winnie left the older woman to her exploration and took the folder back to her desk, where she settled in to read. Lyle had, indeed, included all the information from previous years’ fundraising efforts, but on top of that, he had left her a little note.
Winnie—
Our research is showing that our usual calendar isn’t quite cutting it anymore when it comes to fundraising.
This year, I want us to change things up a little.
This will encourage old donors to come back, so they feel like they’re getting something new out of the experience, and might lure in some new donors as well…
especially the younger ones. You’re my right-hand man over there, so think of this as an opportunity to challenge yourself. Brainstorm us something great.
L
Winnie had to read the memo twice before it really got through her brain.
This was…
Well, in truth, she didn’t know how to feel. She knew that six months ago, she would have found this request incredibly frustrating. It lacked the kind of straightforward direction that she generally preferred when it came to work assignments. It was very open ended.
But now…
She wouldn’t necessarily say that she was one hundred percent excited or anything like that, but she was definitely intrigued.
It was the phrase “challenge yourself” that stuck in her mind.
She had been challenging herself recently, and even though it was, well, challenging, it had also been incredibly rewarding.
So what if she kept trying that? What if she pushed a little harder?
Maybe this wasn’t just her time to become more open and creative personally. Maybe this was a chance for her to grow professionally too.
The more she thought about it, the more she liked that idea. Maybe this would be the year of Winnie, the year where she was brave enough to pursue all the things that she truly wanted from her life. It would obviously be easier said than done, but still. Maybe.
Nodding pleasantly to herself, she looked down at the note again.
Yeah, she wanted to try this! Now, all she had to do was come up with an idea.
No, not just an idea. A great idea. A brilliant idea that made donors eager to open their wallets because they were as enamored of local history as she was.
And just like that, her enthusiasm popped like a balloon.
She had to come up with a great idea. How on earth was she supposed to come up with a great idea?
Let alone an idea that was meant to inspire people to give away their money?
Winnie was bad with people; that was her whole problem.
She was just making her first friends in her thirties, for goodness’ sake.
And now she was suddenly supposed to have some brilliant insight into how to motivate them?
Winnie admitted that it might have been a touch dramatic to let her face drop into her hands so she could let out a frustrated groan, but she did it anyway. She had absolutely no idea where to start when it came to spicing up historical events.
Where was she supposed to go from here? How could she make this happen without ending up with a massive flop?