Even though I’m a native Mantecan, there are places in town I’ve never been. In the days before my move back to school and back to Chicago, I decided to check out one of these places: the Manteca Historical Society Museum.
Located on the corner of Yosemite and Sequoia avenues, the old, beige-colored, church-turned-museum building was something I had passed by on a regular basis, always thinking, “I should stop in there one of these days,” but never actually doing it.
I went on a Sunday, accompanied by my also-native-Mantecan grandma and Illinoisan-turned-Californian grandpa. They had never visited the museum either. It was the first time for all of us.
We walked in and were greeted with that archetypal museum feeling — a feeling of antiquity, curiosity, intrigue. It looked bigger on the inside than it did on the outside.
To our right was a stage, on which mannequins dressed in the military uniforms of some of our many town heroes. As we continued through the museum, artifacts bombarded us from every direction — nostalgic Manteca/East Union High regalia (no Sierra stuff, the “blue school” is too new), elaborate dresses and capes from former Portuguese Festa queens, set-ups of vintage dentist, doctor, and postal offices, and, of course, antique trinkets and knickknacks enclosed behind glass displays.
And that was just inside the building.
Outside, another building housed farming equipment, like a restored tractor and milking machines. Manteca’s first new fire engine, Engine #876 stood next to antique 4H memorabilia and Spreckels Sugar Company artifacts.
There were so many other awesome exhibits, and if I were to include all of them, this article wouldn’t fit in this paper. BUT, the exhibit that stuck out to me the most wasn’t really an exhibit at all. It was a series of black-and-white photos of the town’s various schools.
As my grandma flipped through the panels, we stumbled upon the Rustic School section. I recognized the school as a dilapidated building on Airport Way, just south of Peach Avenue. I didn’t realize it had once been a school.
I also didn’t realize that my grandma had once gone there in first grade.
We scrolled through the photos, looking to see if my grandma was in any of them. We saw a recent reunion photo and my grandparents pointed to the faces of people I only ever knew as names, if I knew of them at all. They even spotted my great grandma (“Grandma Turtle” we called her) in the crowd, but my grandma couldn’t find herself.
In another photo, this time from “back in the day”, we found my late grandfather, “Papa Richard”. He had passed when my father was still in his teens, so I only ever knew him through pictures and stories, but one story I had never heard was how he and my grandma had gone to the same elementary school. They weren’t in the same grade, he was a year or two older, but it was an interesting tidbit to learn.
To learn that my family was a part of this town’s history was a surreal experience.
We never did find a photo of my grandma. What we found out instead was a better understanding of our hometown.
History has always been my favorite school subject (English is a close second) and, walking though our own local museum, I was reminded that history isn’t just as broad as a country or state. Towns have histories too. The history of Manteca is just as rich, just as interesting, as any other history.
If you haven’t visited the Manteca Historical Society Museum, whether you’re 19 or in your 60s, native Mantecan or brand new resident, you should definitely plan a trip.
