By Amy Oprean
Special to The State News
Lansing resident Adrian Oudbier, 78, looked as if he'd woke up thinking it was the 1830s.
Dressed in full costume on Tuesday as Michigan's first governor, Stevens T. Mason, the retired community health worker recounted Michigan's humble beginnings and the state's sour reputation as a swampland in the 19th century.
"Don't go to Michigan, the land of the ill. The very word means fever and chills," Oudbier said, speaking at the Michigan Historical Museum to a group of more than 20 fourth-grade students from Washington Elementary School in Charlotte.
For Oudbier, the part was natural.
"When I retired, I wanted to volunteer for something," Oudbier said.
"All my life, I've been interested in history.
He's one of more than 100 tour guides, called docents, who volunteer their time to work in both non-public positions, such as costume seamstresses, and in-character parts at the at the museum, located at 702 W. Kalamazoo St., in Lansing.
The museum will be accepting applications from anyone with an interest in Michigan history. Interested volunteers will be required to complete a short interview process and training in basic state history.
The next training session starts Oct. 18 and will continue for nine weeks. The training was originally scheduled to begin Tuesday, but was rescheduled.
If there are enough new docents, the museum can switch to a system where all docents are stationed in particular sections, which are divided by decades.
Visitors would be able to skip the guided, chronological tour for mini-tours through each era, said Tammy Averill, curator of education at the museum.
Just outside "The Majestic" movie theater in the 1920s portion of the museum, Lansing resident Barbara Wheeler was dressed for a day of shopping in Detroit as she showed visitors some hot items to pick up at the J.L. Hudson store.
A retired paralegal, Wheeler could give a history lesson on women's waistlines alone.
"The dresses emphasized the hips much more than the waste or bust because we had gotten rid of corsets," Wheeler said, of both the women pictured around her and of her own teal dress.
In the collection of women's beauty supplies, Wheeler pointed out the connection between women's fashion and the economics of the era.
"We gave up our silk stockings so they could make parachutes during the war," she said. "You'd had to get someone to draw that line up the back of your leg so they looked like real stockings."
Wheeler said she's been a docent at the museum for about five years, ever since she visited and "fell in love with the place."
There are a wide range of ages and backgrounds of museum volunteers, from college students working on weekends to retirees of many different professions, Averill said.
"Our most knowledgeable docent of the lumbering era is a retired auto mechanic," she said.
But low attendance is a concern at the museum — something Wheeler attributes to lack of advertising and the free admission.
"People value what they pay for," she said.
Tour guide liaison Dave Bridgens said his parents took him to many museums when he was young and said it is good for children to understand that everything they do is a part of history.
"Many people may have had an uninteresting experience with history in school," Bridgens said. "People have to realize that a museum is a fun and interesting place."
For more information, contact Dave Bridgens at the Michigan Historical Museum at 517-241-0594.
