BOWLING GREEN — Make-your-own USA-themed sunglasses were the featured craft on Friday as the Wood County Museum hosted its monthly Free First Friday and Make-and-Take Craft event.
The Wood County Museum offers free admission and craft-making to all visitors on the first Friday of each month. Admission is usually $7, or $6 for seniors and students and $3 for children.
The monthly affair runs thanks to partnerships with Visit BG Ohio, Visit Perrysburg, and the Rossford Convention and Visitors Bureau. This is the first year the museum has collaborated on events with cities from across Wood County.
“We've had some that have started coming out every first Friday to see what the craft is,” said Annette Wells, director of the museum. “So we do get recurring people.”
The museum also rotates its exhibits, which encourages visitors to come back for the opportunity to see something new.
“Now that we do some of this rotating stuff, it's a bit more appealing. We're not trapped in time,” Ms. Wells said. “We're trying to stay relevant.”
June Peatee, Bowling Green a resident and native, enjoys the museum’s focus on local history. While reading through signs on the wall, Ms. Peatee said she recognized multiple names.
“These pictures remind me of my own family,” she said. “And so this is very interesting to me because I can relate to these.”
Ms. Peatee had come to the museum before but had only seen the first floor. The exhibit she felt so connected to was completely new to her.
The museum’s most notable exhibit, according to Ms. Wells, is its Mary and Carl Bach story. Mary Bach was stabbed to death in 1881 in Wood County by her husband, Carl. Three of Mary’s severed fingers are preserved and on display in the room.
The exhibit aims to give a thorough picture of Mary Bach’s tragic death, while also commenting on how society views domestic violence today, said Ms. Wells.
“The Mary and Carl Bach exhibit has always been probably the most recognizable set of items that we have and probably our most popular exhibit, although it's also the most controversial,” Ms. Wells said. “People remember those items. They’re so macabre,” she said in reference to the severed fingers, the rope used to hang Carl Bach, and the murder weapon.
Prior to the museum’s acquisition of Mary’s remains, they were displayed at the Wood County Courthouse. Since obtaining her remains, the museum has made an effort to tell Mary’s story as a tragic case of domestic violence, rather than show off her fingers as a peculiar spectacle.
“Violence against women is a huge problem. We need to stop sensationalizing this poor lady. We have her remains, but we need to get people to look at this through the lens of today,” Ms. Wells said. “This was somebody’s daughter; this was a mother of three children. She was pregnant at the time of the murder, and her children were in the house while she was being attacked. Maybe we shouldn’t make fun of the victim.”
In its efforts to tell Mary Bach’s story as sensitively as possible, the museum consulted the Cocoon — an agency in Bowling Green that provides shelter and advocacy services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, sex trafficking, stalking, and adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
In addition to the gorier objects, the exhibit includes trial transcripts and an accompanying short film that tells the tragedy.
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