Longtime director Lynne Moratzka retires
At the start of 2024, Scandia resident Ann Rinkenberger took over as Gammelgarden Museum of Scandia’s new director following Lynne Moratzka’s decades-long tenure.
“I’m happy that I get to both live and work in the same community,” Rinkenberger said.
After operating for more than 50 years, the team was shocked to see that 2023 brought a record number of visitors to Gammelgarden since it opened as a historic museum to the public.
“Everyone was so excited about how many people visited Gammelgarden. It was unexpected. We were hoping just to reach what we had in the past [before the pandemic],” Rinkenberger said.
That is the momentum Rinkenberger and the directing team hope to harness as they introduce more community activities, artifact exhibits and assess what the next 50 years for the museum could look like.
Originally hired as a consultant to oversee marketing and promotion in late 2022, Rinkenberger’s primary tasks were to broaden the reach of events via the museum’s Facebook page and website. In mid-2023, she took on the associate director role at Gammelgarden.
“It actually was really beneficial for me to start in the social media role because I really worked with Facebook and activating that, and getting the word out about the museum,” she said.
Her landing the director role is a culmination of her career, where she spent the majority of her life working in the nonprofit sector prior to becoming a stay-at-home mom. As a stay-at-home parent, she also homeschooled her children, which fostered her love of offering new learning opportunities to youth.
“I have a strong interest in education, and especially, kind of alternative ways of learning, and so I bring that interest and background to the position,” Rinkenberger said, adding that is why she wants to see the youth camps continue to expand.
She tied this part of this past year’s attendee record to the introduction of two youth camps where kids learned how to sew at one camp and about Swedish folk tales making tomtes (Swedish gnomes) at another camp. This year, Gammelgarden plans to add two more youth camps focused on Swedish author and illustrator Elsa Beskow’s books on connecting with nature.
The camps from 2023 and offerings in 2024 try “to provide a well-rounded view of what life was like for immigrants back in the 1800s, and then also looking at contemporary issues and how they relate to the 1800 early Swedish settlers,” Rinkenberger explained.
She’s also looking forward to offering rotating exhibits in the Valkommen Hus that will display some of Gammelgarden’s 3,000 artifacts. In early April, an organization will come and analyze the artifacts and provide recommendations on how to display and safely store items.
“Every [artifact] that I have uncovered has been so exciting, and I want people to be able to see that,” Rinkenberger said.
On top of offering indoor rotating exhibits, Gammelgarden is expanding its outdoor exhibits to be more representative of how the settlers lived off of the land in the 1800s, not just where. The museum is working with the Master Gardener program to establish vegetable and medicinal herb gardens to show a larger picture of what settler life was like.
“Agriculture was a part of that site, yet we don’t talk as much about it as we could. So I think there’s ways to really learn more about some of the purposes of the buildings and what did the land look like and what actually happened on it,” Rinkenberger said.
For the opening day in the spring, Gammelgarden is partnering with a business to bring farm animals to the property to showcase that aspect of the immigrant experience.
Rinkenberger encourages community members to check Gammelgarden’s website or Facebook page for upcoming events later in the year. There are a few free community events throughout the summer, when visiting the historic buildings and grounds is free.
Throughout this transitional phase, the board of directors, volunteers and staff began a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis to better understand how Gammelgarden can continue to connect with the community.
“As we look to the next 50 years, what does the organization look like? I think there’s a lot of opportunities that have not been fully explored yet,” Rinkenberger said.
Moratzka’s legacy
Moratzka’s children fondly refer to Gammelgarden as the third child in their family. Operating the museum felt like a family affair, since it was “phenomenal for my two children growing up: Be involved at the museum, and also to then experience meeting people from other countries, ambassadors, prime ministers,” Moratzka said.
Throughout her tenure, she brought several new historic buildings to the site, reached a wider audience and shepherded the story of immigrants in today’s world.
What started as the Elim Lutheran Church pastor’s log home when Scandia was first settled later transitioned into a family-operated farm house around 1884. The last relative in the family who settled there lived in the log house 1971.
A year later, Gammelgarden Museum of Scandia was born to tell the story of immigrants settling the northern Midwest.
“For a lot of people my age and a little bit younger or older, they’ll walk into that particular house and go, ‘This reminds me of going to my grandma’s house on the farm’ and so it transports them back,” Moratzka explained.
She is grateful her team was able to acquire more historic buildings from neighboring towns that expanded on the story Scandia was already telling with the log house and barn.
“We were able to find other buildings that helped tell the immigrant story and that’s the whole point,” she said.
In the early years, she mentioned how the Gammelgarden team was working with financial partners who proposed they start saving early for future repairs on the old structures.
“We were blessed with exceptional, initial leadership,” Moratzka said.
Gammelgarden grew in popularity when Moratzka welcomed the log home to be the fictional setting for American Girl Doll Kirsten Larson in the 1990s. That brought in waves of visitors to see the site, putting Gammelgarden on a regional map beyond the area.
“That was one of the biggest boosters and important milestones for that museum,” Moratzka said.
The idea of telling the story of immigrants has always been the driving force behind Moratzka’s mission, which led to hosting it’s first naturalization ceremony for new citizens in May 2022.
“It was so exciting because there were 62 citizens that day, and they represented more than 22 countries. Many of them came wearing their traditional clothing from home, so it was kind of a worldwide fashion show,” she said.
After being so involved in the organization for more than 40 years, it’s been an adjustment taking a step away from the organization.
“It takes a little getting used to, because over the 40 years or so, you develop a rhythm. … So I’ve been finding other tasks to do,” Moratzka said.
Even though she is no longer the full-time director, Moratzka still has plans to help out at Gammelgarden – she still thinks of it a little as one of her own.
“It’s a little bit like when your kid gets married and they’re a part of another family,” Moratzka joked.
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