Glen Burnie Day also includes Free Music, Children’s Activities, and Meet-the-Artist Opportunity
Winchester, VA 7/17/13…This Saturday, July 19, the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (MSV) will offer free admission to its six-acre gardens, Glen Burnie House, and Museum galleries during Glen Burnie Day from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. The family-oriented event will also include an antique and modified car show, also free of charge, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., and two free concerts by the Clarke County Community Band at noon and 1:30 p.m.
Along with enjoying free admission, the free car show, and the free concerts, visitors will also have the opportunity to meet artist Barbara Hodgen in the Museum Store. A resident of Waynesboro, Virginia, Hodgen creates works of art using petals and leaves grown in her Shenandoah Valley garden. Prints and note cards of her colorful work will be available for purchase in the Museum Store.
According to MSV Executive Director Dana Hand Evans, Saturday’s event is a fun, economical opportunity for families to discover the Museum together. She notes that the Museum has been hosting the family-oriented Glen Burnie Day since 1997, and the tradition has grown to include free admission to the Museum galleries and the car show. Evans adds that this year’s event is notable as it offers attendees the opportunity to tour the newly renovated Glen Burnie House. The house reopened last month following an extensive, two-year renovation process.
A popular component of Glen Burnie Day, Saturday’s Antique and Modified Car Show is anticipated to be among the highlights of the event. Coordinated by the Shenandoah Region of the Antique Automobile Club of America (SRAACA), the display will showcase antique and modified cars that are at least 25 years old. According to SRAACA member Angie Yonally, nearly 90 cars are registered for this year’s event, including a 1934 Hudson Terraplane, a 1941 Studebaker, a 1964 Porsche, and a 1958 Ford T-Bird, and a 1965 Chevrolet Corvair.
The car show will take place on the lawn in front of the house. The SRAACA will present awards to car show participants at 3 p.m. New among this year’s awards is the People’s Choice Award. Glen Burnie Day attendees will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite antique or modified car at the event. To complement the cars on display and taking place at noon and 1:30 p.m., the Clarke County Community Band will play twentieth-century hits and other popular favorites in free 45-minute concerts. Weather permitting, the concerts will take place outside. In the event of extreme heat or rain, the music will move indoors to the Museum Reception Hall.
In addition to the car show, throughout the day visitors are invited to explore the Museum’s six acres of gardens, which include a Grand Allée of crab apple trees, hundreds of blooming rose bushes, statues, fountains, colorful perennials, and a Water Garden with a pond stocked with golden trout. Visitors may learn the stories behind the creation of the gardens in Stories in the Soil, a free audio tour (adult and children’s versions) and discover the history of the Glen Burnie House on a self-guided tour. Built in 1794 by Robert Wood, son of Winchester founder James Wood, and last owned by MSV benefactor Julian Wood Glass Jr. (1910–1992), the Glen Burnie House has been home to the Wood and Glass families for generations. In the house ten new interpretive panels show visitors archival images of people who have lived in Glen Burnie over the years and new displays highlight the decorative objects Glass collected and enjoyed in his ancestral home.
During Glen Burnie Gardens Day visitors may also experience exhibitions in the Museum galleries for free. On view in the Founders Gallery, Moveable Feasts: Entertaining at Glen Burnie tells the story of the entertaining that took place in the Glen Burnie House and Gardens during the 1960s. The Shenandoah Valley Gallery explores a broad sweep of Valley history and features the new exhibition, Safes of the Valley. The new display tells the story of a cherished Shenandoah Valley furniture form and includes 45 food safes (commonly known as pie safes), most from private collections and many on first-time display in the MSV. Nearby, the R. Lee Taylor Miniatures Gallery presents a fascinating collection of furnished miniature houses and rooms.
Visitors who work up an appetite touring the car show, gardens, and galleries will be pleased to know that Bonnie Blue will be offering barbecue and other favorites in an outdoor café from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. For those seeking a special souvenir or gift, the Museum Store will be open throughout the day. And, finally, before they leave for the day, all visitors will want to enter the free drawing to win a one-year Family Membership to the Museum (a $75 value). The drawing will take place at the conclusion of the day; winners are not required to be present.
The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley complex—which includes the Museum, the Glen Burnie House, and the gardens— is located at 901 Amherst Street in Winchester, Virginia. The site is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Additional information is available online at www.theMSV.org or by calling 540-662-1473, ext. 235.