Violins of Hope
“These instruments were essentially rescued from the Holocaust. They were owned by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust. Some of the musicians survived. Some perished. Some, we don’t know,” says Jeffrey Jamner, Senior Director of ArtsRise at Kentucky Performing Arts, describing the 60 violins that came to Louisville’s Frazier Museum in the fall of 2019.
“But the instruments were worked on and restored and given new life, so they sing again,” says Jamner “Their coming here was like bringing living artifacts from that history.”
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Dr. Ephraim McDowell and Jane Todd Crawford
In Danville, the McDowell House Museum is a monument to an era when Kentucky was still part of the American frontier. Built in the 1790s and early 1800s, the house was the home and office of Dr. Ephraim McDowell, a physician who earned his place in medical history alongside one remarkable patient in 1809.
McDowell studied medicine in Scotland and other parts of Europe, and brought his expertise to a region where it was in need, choosing to build his practice and his life in Danville.
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USS Sachem: Kentucky's Ghost Ship
There aren’t many historical figures that could claim to have been part of Thomas Edison’s experiments, both World Wars, and a Madonna video. In fact, there may only be one, and it is currently sitting in a creek in Boone County, Kentucky.
“It was referred to as the ghost ship, and it is very creepy looking,” says Hillary Delaney, Local History Associate at Boone County Public Library. “It’s this old hulking mass of metal that’s sitting in this tiny little creek. It looks sort of gray and a little bit spooky. And I quickly learned that it was not that; it had a really rich, interesting history, and so I had to backpedal and learn a little bit more about why this huge boat is stuck in a tiny creek in Boone County.”
