By FINN HARTNETT

Staff writer

Alecia Stuchlik, the newest director of the Marion Historical Museum, didn’t know much about museum curation when she took the job.

“I was surprised by how much I did need to learn,” she said, “how much goes into curating, taking care of a museum, and making sure that things aren’t going to disintegrate on you.”

But a new and energetic mindset might be exactly what the old museum needs.

A Towanda native, Stuchlik majored in anthropology and creative writing at Kansas State University.

She moved to Los Angeles after graduation, where she joined an alternative community called L.A. Catholic Worker.

The group is gospel-oriented and founded on anarchist principles, according to its mission statement.

It operates a popular soup kitchen — locally known as the Hippie Kitchen — in Skid Row, where it serves 3,000 meals a day to those in need.

“The ideology of the Catholic Worker is you live in a community and live and work with the poor,” Stuchlik said. “You meet them where they’re at.”

Stuchlik worked at Hippie Kitchen for $15 a week plus room, board, and transportation. (The stipend has since gone up to $25 a week.)

She met her husband while living in the community.

After leaving the Catholic Worker, Stuchlik worked at a women’s shelter for four years. After her kids were born, she stayed home while running an online Etsy shop, where she found a niche selling sewed incontinence products.

She no longer sews the products, though she continues to sell drawings of some of her designs.

“I’ve learned how to run a business and do online marketing,” Stuchlik said.

She and her family moved to Marion in 2020 to be closer to her parents. She has since taken a liking to the rural lifestyle.

“It’s nice to have a house that your kids can run around in and have space,” she said, “to have a little nature and not be paying $2,500 a month for a two-bedroom apartment”

After working as a secretary at Holy Family Parish, she applied for the museum job.

While Stuchlik didn’t have direct experience with museums, the job combined aspects of her work spent with service groups, religious organizations, and self-run businesses, as well as her anthropology degree.

“I felt like it was a really good mix,” Stuchlik said.

The museum is open May to October. It is open four hours a day on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, and six on Saturday.

The schedule has given Stuchlik time to work on the biggest issue facing the museum: infrastructure.

The basement is old and leaks. After recent storms, water pooled there a foot deep, Stuchlik said.

Given the number of artifacts stored in the basement, renovations are as pressing as they are complicated.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if, over the years, a lot of things have been lost,” Stuchlik said.

She also wants to archive more of the museum’s collection; many photos and objects from Marion’s past have not yet been logged.

New exhibits will come after the collection is archived. Stuchlik is mulling over a few ideas.

“We have a lot of limestone buildings,” she said. “I think it would be neat to have a pulley system or something that is an interactive exhibit on how they built the buildings.”

An educational garden outside the door featuring native plants is another idea.

Stuchlik’s biggest desire is to make the space more appealing for parents to take young children.

“When I lived in LA, my kids were little, and that’s what we would do,” she said. “We would go to museums: natural history museums, science museums, art museums. Every museum had something for kids.”

Stuchlik has set up an arts-and-crafts corner, and plans to sponsor classes for kids in July.

Topics will include historical storytelling and how to sew an apron.

“We’ll see if anyone signs up,” she said with a smile.

Stuchlik began work May 7, becoming the first employee at the museum since the previous director departed last August.

A board of eight help manage the space, but Stuchlik is largely alone in the grand old building.

She is working on with a new website and monthly newsletter which she hopes will help draw bigger crowds.

But the quiet hasn’t been too much of a problem for the self-described introvert.

“It’s nice to come in and know I’m going to have this time,” Stuchlik said. “People might come in and talk to me for a little bit, but not all the time. I’ve got plenty of time to decide, ‘I’m going to do this, and nothing’s going to interrupt me.’”