ESTEVAN, Sask. – It’s safe to say that Estevan wouldn’t have a pioneer
museum if it wasn’t for Stanley Durr.
In fact, the Souris Valley Museum was built two years ago solely to
accommodate the retired farmer’s antique collection.
With the exception of a truck, baby crib and kitchen cabinet, the
museum is made up entirely of Durr’s treasures.
He has loaned the museum his collection of Charles Russell paintings
and a 1911 Flanders coupe that has been promised to his son. Everything
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else has been donated out right to the museum.
Durr, who farmed 55 kilometres west of Estevan at Bromhead, Sask.,
bought his first antique in 1942 – a maple sugar cooking vat that a
farmer had used to cook barley for his horses. The collecting never
ended.
“I travelled to sales from one end of the province and into Manitoba,”
he said.
Durr’s collection grew over 60 years until it filled four or five
buildings on the farm. If it was used by farmers and their families
early in the last century, he found a place for it.
Durr and his wife Georgean started living in Estevan part-time in the
late 1960s, but by 1999 the Estevan address was becoming more
permanent. This left them with a dilemma. While they were in the city,
their precious antiques remained unguarded on the farm.
Enter Marguerite Gallaway, a long-time arts supporter in Estevan and a
friend of the Durrs.
“I asked him what he was going to do with his collection and I thought
he said rather sadly, ‘I guess I’ll have to sell it,’ so we came up
with an alternative idea.”
Gallaway’s original plan was for Durr to lend his antiques for a
temporary exhibit, but Durr countered by offering to donate them to the
city.
“My family all agreed that it was a lifetime collection that should
stay together,” Durr said.
That meant a permanent facility was needed and Gallaway, who sits on
Estevan’s tourism committee, went to the city for help. It was
interested.
Gallaway then went looking for money.
“People in Estevan often said to me, ‘isn’t it a shame we don’t have a
museum.’ There’s been other collections that we have lost because we
didn’t have a facility, so there was a lot of community support.”
The Royal Canadian Legion committed $10,000 and other pledges followed.
A proposal was prepared, and the city agreed to spend $100,000 over
five years.
A 5,000 sq. foot building was built in 2000, much of it with donated
building materials, and the museum opened later that year.
Vehicles are featured in the centre of the building, and the space
along the walls is divided into smaller areas showing various aspects
of family life, such as a kitchen, bedroom and children’s room.
There are also three buildings behind the museum, all donated by Durr:
the old one-room school from Bromhead that Durr attended and where his
mother taught; the homestead shack built by Durr’s father in 1904; and
the cook car that helped feed the Durr threshing crew. The buildings
are furnished from Durr’s collection.
Gallaway said the collection consists of thousands of items, and not
all are catalogued yet.
“It’s still a work in progress, but it’s come a long way.”
For Durr’s part, he still spends much of his summer at the farm,
restoring old vehicles. Georgean died last year, but not before seeing
the collection installed.
“We were both very pleased to think it had gone where it had, where it
will be permanently well cared for,” he said.
