A Typical Summer at the Boal Mansion is a Unique Experience.

Photo on right: Learning local history from primary sources: Millheim homeschoolers Gus and Huck Trisch with their friend Nettie and their mother Shana, play Sherlock Holmes combing for clues in the front hall of the Boal Mansion as part of an interactive learning tour.
Photos below: More photos of summer at the Boal Mansion. Click on photos to enlarge them.

Flower watering at the gate by Count Charles Ladislas Louis Marie Mouchet de Battefort de Laubespin, grandson of a Marquis of the same family name.

Penn State's FreshStart volunteers in the Columbus Chapel after cleaning up and picking up at the museum.

Highschool volunteer guides, French visitors and friends take a break from a lively game of Ultimate Frisbee

Boal cousin Count Gaspar de Menthon (center) of Paris and his schoolmate Arthur Rauzy with groundskeeper Joel Griffin (right) got the bonfire started on June 21.

A bus full of retired teachers and county school employees called the museum "a hidden gem" and promised to tell everyone they know about it.

Sherlocks: Gus and Huck Trisch and their mother Shana and friend Nettie Vernon

On any given summer day, where is it that you might find a retired corporate executive discussing Christopher Columbus with out-of-town visitors, or a French count or marquis – young friends and relatives of the Boal family here to learn English -- watering flowers, or the museum’s bright young high-school volunteer guides taking a break to teach the French visitors ultimate Frisbee?

That is your typical summer day at the Boal Mansion Museum, where the bright and motivated, both young and old, get together to advance the museum mission of historic preservation, heritage education and community service while enjoying the spacious beauty of the forty acre historic site which is listed on the US Department of the Interior’s National Register of Historic Sites.

Some days are less typical. Twice this summer, thirty student volunteers from Penn State gathered at the museum to help clean up and pick up.  A dozen of them have signed up to come back again of their own accord. These volunteers were treated to refreshments donated by Nancy Crane and a tour of the museum.

And then there were the young homeschoolers who took part in a special interactive learning tour (see large photo), or the longest day of the year when everyone gathered for a bonfire “to keep the sun alive!” 

That’s a typical summer at the Boal Mansion Museum – a unique combination of people, place and program that happens everyday.

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Docent John Wainright, a retired corporate executive, sets up the ballroom for school children taking the interactive learning tour.