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- Alfred William Eustace's paintings safe in Chiltern's hands
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- Eldorado dredge stirs memories of hard work, wild days | video, photos
BILL Steele thought long and hard about taking over as chairman of the Chiltern Athenaeum Trust after the sudden death of his long-time friend and Chiltern icon Rex Fuge last September.
But he is now driven by a desire to ensure Mr Fuge’s legacy will live on and a century on from now others will know his name, what he did for Chiltern and how passionate he was about his town and its history.
“God, we miss him,” Mr Steele said.
“His are big boots to fill but I know I can’t be Rex Fuge.
“My idea is that I carry on a tradition in the way he would have wanted.”
Mr Fuge was most closely associated with the Chiltern Athenaeum Museum, where he was chairman and chief historian for close to 35 years.
Mr Steele said Mr Fuge had joined the trust in the early 1970s, ahead of the shire handing over the former town hall building that became the museum.
The huge collection, that has been built up since the 1970s, became a focus for Mr Fuge, who continued to seek out new pieces such as military badges and old postcards as they were offered for sale by families over the internet or in person.
It includes the unique paintings of bush artist Alfred William Eustace, who painted on gum leaves and canvas; memorabilia paying tribute to one of Chiltern’s favourite sons and Australian prime minister, Sir John McEwen; and the writing desk and a painting of writer Henry Handel Richardson.
Among Mr Steele’s favourites in the collection are the goggles belonging to pilot Frank Robertson, who was with the Advanced Training Squadron based at Deniliquin when he was forced to land his Wirraway aircraft on the roof of Sister Carter’s home in Epsom Road, Chiltern on May 3, 1943.
“Rex was the president right through from about 1979 and he achieved a lot,” he said.
“He was the one who fought for the grants to raise the money to build the annex.
“Now I’m in the chair you see how big a part of Chiltern the athenaeum is, how it is a focal point of the town.”
Mr Steele moved to the North East from Melbourne 12 years ago but he has had a life-long association with the region, with his mother born at Cornishtown.
“I have been coming up here all my life and I had known Rex for 55 years.
“For the past 25 years we had renewed our contact and even though I had been living in Melbourne I had been helping Rex with projects, buying items at auction and working indirectly for him.
“When I came up 12 years ago he grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and I had been vice-president for the past four or five years.”
Mr Steele described Mr Fuge’s sudden death on September 6 last year as “the day the roof fell in”.
“I became acting president and then president but I pondered upon whether to do it and had discussions with my dear wife who said ‘you can’t let Rex’s work down’,” he said.
“My sole aim now is to get to a position to hand the athenaeum on one day in the way Rex would have wanted it.
“We will make a few more changes digitally but we will run it in the same mould.”
Mr Steele said the trust had between 35 and 40 members with 15 of those active in providing voluntary assistance weekly, working in the museum and in compiling family histories for the region, one of the museum’s biggest money earners.
Up to 4300 people pass through the museum’s doors each year, including school and social club tour groups.
“I think of what we’ve got; it’s a piece of the past, it’s unique,” Mr Steele said.
“The World War I honour roll with all the names, the paintings by Alfred William Eustace, Henry Handel Richardson’s writing desk and out in the yard, the mining implements from the region ... and we still only charge $2 a head.
“Rex did not want to charge entry for children and I think we’ll keep that going.
“He looked upon the museum as an educational institution. He was very strong about having school children visit and showing them the old ways, practical things about how their lives worked and how lucky they were in comparison.”
Mr Steele said the volunteers were key to the museum’s ongoing success.
“They do a marvellous job and put in many hours a week helping to compile family histories where we can search newspaper articles for details of someone we may have the birth or death certificates for,” he said.
“Often we get a photograph from a family that we may not have of someone and we can give them a family history we have done at a reduced cost.
“We are digitising more of our information, putting more of our paper files into a digitised form.”
Mr Steele said in recent years the trust had developed tours and programs that brought history alive, combining the town’s historical resources in tours that cover the museum, cemetery, Lakeview, the pharmacy and the Star theatre.
“We do ripper cemetery walks, conducted by Ian Charlton who makes it fun. The cemetery is not a place of sorrow, Ian makes it a place of achievements; that was something started by Ian and Rex and we have Ian set up with a remote microphone system.
“With Rex gone we have had to restructure the place — he was here six days a week — but it will go on.
“We will continue to work with the volunteers who freely give of their time and we will always welcome newcomers, we need as many people as those who want to do things and talk to people about Chiltern and its past.”
Anyone wanting to volunteer at the Chiltern Athenaeum Museum can contact Mr Steele on 0407 515 985.