'Christmas Adventure' book makes house tours special
Photo by Eamon Queeney, Evansville Courier & Press
ZACH NELSON / Special to The Courier & Press With the museum decorated for the Reitz Home Victorial Chrismas, Reitz Home tour guide Alli Hayden, right, shows the first floor parlor room to visitors Pat Koplin. left, and Susan Libbert during a tour of the historic home at 224 SE First St. on Thursday.
A little girl and her large stuffed mouse take a fantastical, dreamlike journey through time and imagination in "A Reitz Home Christmas Adventure," a new book being unveiled Sunday in the Reitz Home Museum as part of this year's Reitz Home Victorian Christmas.The 32-page book, written by Nick and Michelle Williams with illustrations by Connie McConaughy, tells a fanciful story, but it includes lots of details about the historic home and the family that lived in it in the late 1800s.
The authors and illustrator donated their efforts on the book and underwriters paid for its publication by M.T. Publishing of Evansville. All the money generated from sales of the $17.95 hardcover can all go directly to the museum, says Nick Williams.
When the first printing sells out, "they stand to make $18,000 on it," Williams said. All the creators signed over rights to the book, so the Reitz Home can continue to make money from it in the future.
For 21 years, Nick Williams, the manager for Lea Matthews Interiors, has decorated rooms in the Reitz Home for the museum's annual Victorian Christmas displays. It was in the museum, during a Christmas gala, that he proposed to Michelle, his wife, of 16 years.
The book is a way "to do something more lasting for the museum," Williams said. He and Michelle used their own daughter, Kennedy Williams, as the model for the girl in their story.
"It just seemed natural," said Nick Williams. "She's been involved with the Reitz Home Victorian Christmas since she could talk."
The book follows Kennedy, a young girl on a Christmas visit to the Reitz Home Museum, and Merrick, her stuffed, oversized mouse doll. Kennedy drops Merrick, then dozes off in a bedroom while hunting for him. She awakens in the 1870s, when the home's original owners lived there, and meets the family and servants as she chases after Merrick.
McConaughy, an artist, educator and Reitz Home trustee and docent, included thumbnail details from rooms in the house in her page illustrations. The idea is to give young visitors items to search for on tours, in a kind of visual scavenger hunt.
The detailed objects include stained glass windows, a concert harp, an old-fashioned toilet with an elevated water tank, an order card for ice delivery and a spool of thread.
The authors have also stashed a few stuffed Merricks and even more Merrick mouse tails around the house for children to hunt out during the Reitz Home Victorian Christmas tours.
They're tucked in among this year's holiday decorations, put up this week by local schools, nonprofit groups and other volunteers.
They'll all go on display Nov. 20, in the opening event, which will run from 1 to 5 p.m.
McConaughy and Nick and Michelle Williams will meet readers and sign books all afternoon as part of the opening. And harpist Mary Dicken will perform at 2 p.m.
Admission is $7.50 for adults, $2.50 for students, $1.50 for children 12 and younger and free for those 6 and younger. The museum is normally open from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Sundays. For more information visit www.reitzhome.com online or call 812-426-1861.
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