Meet the woman keeping Madison County history alive

Marilyn Moyer rings the bell of one of the oldest fire pumpers in the state as people walk through the door. She tells them it’s the tool firefighters used to hand-pump water back in the day. It’s held within the Madison County Historical Society Museum in Madison, Nebraska.

Moyer, 80, has volunteered at the museum for more than a decade. She's a walking encyclopedia of every story the museum contains – even the ones in the bathroom.

“The next room is our restroom,” she said on a tour. “And what do you do with all the hats you find? So this is what we did with all the hats we found. We put them up on the walls.”

The building is packed with figurines, displays and even a couple emu eggs. The oddities from the county’s history fill the museum from floor to ceiling.

Every item has a connection to Madison County. And Moyer can talk about that connection — like how Thurl Ravenscroft, one of the voices of Frosted Flakes’ Tony the Tiger, is originally from Norfolk.

Although Moyer’s tour focuses on the past, she engages with visitors at every display.

At the display on the orphan train that went through Nebraska between 1854-1929, she hands visitors a brown paper bag to open just as the orphans would have at Christmas. The crinkly bag has some plastic nuts and an orange to symbolize what would have been considered presents.

“The kids today, when they come for a tour, are just blown away," Moyer said. "‘What? They didn't get any toys?’ No, they didn't get any toys. They had each other to play with. So that's a visual aid that we help the children to empathize a little bit with these children."

Although the museum has displays aimed at adults, like the kitchen items, Moyer does her best to make sure children stay entertained as well. She shows them how to make the Christmas train run and introduces them to a singing chicken.

“Imagine 40 kids in here doing the chicken dance,” Moyer said, gesturing to the narrow pathway in between exhibits.

Moyer’s official role with the historical society is treasurer, but her job has expanded beyond that. She’s a loyal advocate for keeping the county’s history alive and well in its physical form as a museum. The museum to a new location in 2022, but that hasn’t stopped expansions.

“More stuff is coming in all the time, but stuff is not going out,” Moyer said. “It’s here, it’s donated. We started out years ago with loans, but now everything has to be donated.”

Even though the museum relies on donations for its displays, it has its share of financial obstacles. Moyer and her team of volunteers try their best to keep an eye out for ways to save money when possible.

The museum displays flags from the Norfolk veterans home to remember those who died and don’t have family members to take the flags. Volunteers will wait for buy-one-get-one-free sales to buy displays for those flags.

“Donations, volunteers, nobody gets paid, and we struggle, but we make it,” Moyer said.

Her tour mixes the county’s history as well as her personal stories and memories.

As Moyer points to exhibits and displays, she shares the story of her family’s apple orchard, her teaching experience and her mother’s stove that used to run on corn cobs.

Moyer even connects the tragedies throughout her life. She recalled two tornadoes in the county’s history: one in 1954 that destroyed her family’s home.

“These metal doll houses came out, so my dollhouse that went in the tornado was a metal one," she said. "Yeah, and then before that, they were wooden.”

An earlier tornado in 1881 destroyed the Presbyterian Church.

“The next morning, the flag was still there on the wall, the flowers were in the vases, but the building was gone and the bell was in the dirt,” Moyer said, gesturing to a wall displaying a tattered flag.

Moyer works with three other volunteers for the Madison County Historical Society. She played a hand in getting its two youngest volunteers to take on roles. One of them was Nathan Ambrose, the current vice president.

Ambrose was originally helping the society with a project, but the plans changed because of Moyer. She persuaded him to join the Historical Society Board of Directors. Ambrose said even if he may not have joined the society without Moyer, he sees value in the history the museum preserves.

“I do believe that we need to keep our history. That is, always has been, even though it's been a very poor subject in school for me, but it's very important that it'd be a shame to lose all that memory,” he said.

Ambrose said he doesn’t make it to the museum often, but when he does, his favorite exhibit changes.

“Typically, it’s whatever Marilyn tells me,” he said with a laugh. "And there's a few of those that kind of bounce around."

Currently, Moyer's favorite story is about a Navy uniform from a Madison County man who died in World War II. His daughter was just a few months old when he passed. But that daughter has continued to return to the museum to see her father’s uniform.

“The daughter keeps coming back and wants to touch something of her dad's, you know, so that's a story that's real important to us,” Moyer said. “I think that’s one of the favorites because it’s heart rending that he didn’t get to see his baby and he died, but look how they have honored him.”

Moyer’s passion for history extends outside of the museum. Madison resident and journalist Alana Kellen said it’s obvious Moyer cares deeply for the county.

“She always has a lot of ideas to help grow the museum, help kind of grow Madison,” Kellen said. “She's always looking for people to help her execute some of those ideas, but she's trying the best that she can to make Madison better.”

Moyer is always looking to expand the museum and document the county’s history — including her own story. She was a teacher in Madison for more than 20 years. She got her education degree at Wayne State College, and found her own way to pay for college through a popular competition — which she plans to mark in the museum.

“I became Miss Norfolk, and I'll put my trophy here and stuff, but I haven't done so yet. So anyway, I was Miss Norfolk 1963, so I had a $700 scholarship. That was a lot of money. That was going to help me keep going to school. Oh, and there were opportunities to meet young men that I hadn't met before,” she said with a cheeky grin.

Moyer eventually married a young man who came along and has been married for more than 50 years to George Moyer. She's spent the last five decades watching her family grow.

For anyone who comes to visit the Madison County Historical Society Museum, Moyer is ready to greet them with a smile and plenty of stories. And show them what makes Madison County, Madison County.