Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 7, 1993 TAG: 9301070370
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Charles Stebbins Staff
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
SALEM MUSEUM AND DIRECTOR ARE A GOOD MATCH
Nikki Martin and the Salem Museum are growing together.She is helping the museum, which officially opened in June, get off to a good start, and the museum is helping her develop an interest in history.
"I really enjoy museum work," said Martin, director and the museum's first full-time employee.
She said the Salem Historical Society, which owns the museum, has done "a tremendous amount of work" refurbishing the old Williams-Brown House-Store which is now the museum at 801 E. Main St., Salem, in a corner of Longwood Park.
One of her main tasks is to make the museum better known. She gives talks at club meetings and is looking for ways to put the Salem Museum in the limelight.
She also lines up volunteers to be docents and schedules them to be receptionists when the museum is open. She also guides and directs college interns who work on various projects for the museum.
A project in progress, she said, is a historical Downtown Salem walking tour which is being prepared by an intern from Roanoke College. Martin said this tour will help draw attention to the museum.
Also, she said, the museum will be one of the stops in the Boy Scouts annual Klondike Derby in February, and the museum also will have an exhibit on the history of Scouting in Salem.
She also is trying to develop group tours from schools and Scout troops and has had several of those visit the museum recently.
"We need to do more of that," she said.
Martin said the museum played a major role in helping her decide on a career in history.
Martin began to develop an interest in history after she enrolled at Roanoke College. She took several elective history classes and found that history professors at Roanoke College made history "really interesting."
One of her professors, Mark Miller, was head of the department and an active member of the Salem Historical Society. It was through him, Martin said, that she learned that historical society members are "really excited about the museum."
It has been her contact with society members - some of them history teachers - that has made her decide to become a teacher. Seeing how interested they are in local history and their enthusiasm for the museum made Martin want to be like them.
Miller guided Martin to her first job with the museum near the end of her senior year in May.
\ Name: Nicole Leigh Martin but to her friends she's "Nikki."
\ Age: Will be 24 in January.
\ Hometown: Roanoke County.
\ Residence: Southwest Roanoke.
\ Education: Penn Forest Elementary School; Cave Spring High School; a year at James Madison University; graduate of Roanoke College.
\ Family: Unmarried but has relatives in the Roanoke Valley.
\ Other jobs: Several part-time jobs during high school and college. Current job with museum is first full-time job. To help accumulate funds for further education, she recently started a part-time sales clerk job.
\ Latest book read: During the Christmas season she was well into "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck.
\ Favorite music: Classical, jazz and bluegrass pretty much in that order.
\ First job at the Salem museum: Researching the old Lake Spring Hotel. The hotel, which ceased to exist long ago, stood next to the current Lake Spring pond on Salem's West Main Street.
Martin said that when she began this task she knew little more than the name of the hotel. But she enjoyed doing the research and was glad to learn more about Salem's history. Her research has become one of the museum's permanent exhibits.
P.B. Douglas, president of the historical society, said the society's leaders were so impressed with Martin's Lake Spring research, that they took her on as a consultant to help get the museum open on a regular basis. And, last June the museum started regular hours Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Saturday noon to 5 p.m.
\ Most likeable thing about the museum: The members of the Salem Historical Society are enthusiastic about the museum. They are its best promoters and great numbers of them have volunteered as docents to keep the museum open on regular hours.
Society members have been very helpful to her in settling into the job.
\ Favorite historical tidbit about Salem: She doesn't rank any particular incident as a favorite, but said the fact that Salem once was something of a resort is fascinating. She learned this while researching the old Lake Spring Hotel project.
\ Historical figure she would like to research: Martin doesn't have any consuming interest in any national historical figures, but because she recently has finished research on the Lake Spring Hotel, she would like to know more about Flavis Josephus Chapman, who built the Lake Spring Hotel in the 1870s.
She also would like to know more about the Williams and Brown families who, at different times, were owners of the building that is now the Salem Museum.
\ Favorite period in history: 19th century United States.
\ Future plans: Graduate school to help prepare her to be a history teacher. She has not decided on a school yet but has applied to several. She wants to teach American history.
Keywords:
PROFILE
Memo: NOTE: Also ran in January 28, 1993 Current.