Museum wandering is fun, especially with the right guidance

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It stands southwest of the train depot, registered between the secretive Hazel Alley and the town’s community center.

The Spring Hope Historical Museum — established 1989.

Low-slung and capped with corrugated sheet metal, it still looks capable of housing the past — but then again, would something called a “shotgun house” ever fail a stress test?

Not likely.

Inside, there’s a trove of all things Spring Hope, beginning with a spot-on diorama of the town, pieced together by Paul Gross.

Complete with a horse-drawn carriage and power lines, the work provides a panoramic snap of what was — which, per local author Constance Matthews, was still quiet during her 26th year.

“In the files of a sensation seeker,” Matthews wrote, “Spring Hope is nil, having been blissfully undisturbed so far in 1937 by disastrous fires, floods, murders, tornadoes, earthquakes, revolutions, gold or oil discoveries. To this writer, this little town is home. As such, she has no equal in the world.”

Lucky for Spring Hope’s residents, then, to have Gay Sturgeon and Ro Broyles so willing to carry the words forward.

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Neither is from North Carolina — Sturgeon hails from New Hampshire and Broyles from California — but you’d hardly notice that during a walkabout.

Because those two can really riff.

And by riff, I mean talk.

And by talk, I mean expand the thoughts of Matthews and her ilk time and again — all you have to do is grace the door and point to something.

Game on.

In the main lobby, there’s plenty to choose from, starting with a picture of the old high school — now Spring Hope Elementary School.

There’s also report cards and a stack of Enterprise editions rising beyond the windowsill.

The news, leather-bound and faded.

There’s a class ring, too, donated by the family of  Virginia Marshburn.

Across the way, a shelf flaunts a bag of stone-ground corn meal — sifted and unbolted, just the way you like it — from the good folks at Webb’s Mill.

But the undisputed star of the main room, however, stands alone in 3D.

“What’s wow is that,” Sturgeon said of the encased spectacle. “If you come in here with a kid, that’s what they want to look at. They want to know where to turn it on — and that’s the story of Spring Hope.”

“Circa 1910,” added Broyles.

And the piece really is a gem, with notes to document all sorts of places lost to time.

Places like Baines Bros. Wagon Factory and Lumber Yard.

City Hall.

Yeargin Iron Foundry and the Ice House, still in solid form on Ash Street.

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A dim-colored Underwood typewriter — once the property of journalist and Spring Hope native Roy E. Wilder Jr. — headlines the second room, as well it should.

Because what a career.

In addition to landing bylines in the New York Herald Tribune, Wilder was called for duty in World War II, reporting the Battle of Normandy as a first lieutenant with the U.S. Army Cavalry.

After Europe, he returned stateside, working in the public sector on the gubernatorial campaigns of Kerr Scott and Terry Sanford.

He also penned “You All Spoken Here,” designed to help those not from here make legitimate sense of things said ‘round here.

“He’ll never drown in sweat,” Wilder once wrote, meaning so-and-so isn’t really the hardworking kind.

Another classic?

“His egg got shook,” meaning so-and-so is the uncoordinated kind.

Or the hilariously funny “All vines and no taters,” meaning so-and-so is the false kind.

In a word, extraordinary — but that’s not all.

There’s other local fare in the room as well, including a dentistry cabinet full of vitamins, porcelain and a blue bottle of Vapor Rub — also known as the intense-smelling gunk used for “relief of the distressing stuffiness of head colds and nasal irritation.”

In a word, everlasting.

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You can really tell a lot about a place by how people dote, or don’t, on its past.

Truly.

And while impressive, the artifacts of Spring Hope just wouldn’t shine as bright if not for the commentary of Sturgeon and Broyles, whose cross-chatter made our visit a rich experience.

It was alive. Brimming.

Accented.

See also: layered and without boundary — a promise kept, if you will, to one of the museum’s founding members.

“One of the original founders was, uh, Annie Pearl Brantley,” Sturgeon remarked. “Annie Pearl Brantley said, ‘What I don’t want is for this to become the attic of Spring Hope.’”

Again, not likely.

Because in short order, a new exhibit will be displayed, just as this year’s retrospective — a look at area schools from the 1920s through the 1960s — debuted in March.

“What are kids interested in?” Spurgeon asked while pacing about. “You know, let’em wander around … you do the same thing with the adults, and they find stuff.”

Indeed so, with great conversation to pair with any discovery.

Justin Hayes is The Enterprise’s news editor. Reach him at jhayes@springhopeenterprise.com .

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