Museum London is looking a century into the future to ask London Health Sciences Centre staff what one item they’d want in a coronavirus pandemic exhibit.
The museum and the hospital network are teaming up in hopes of collecting about 25 objects to tell the story of what life has been like this past year for hospital staff.
Museum London’s curator of regional history Amber Lloydlangston says an announcement will soon be sent out to all LHSC staff with further details on how to take part, but the process will involve people emailing her a picture of their object with an accompanying story explaining the choice.
“It could be a piece of painted rock with some beautiful comment on it of support for an essential worker. It could be a sign that somebody put up in their yard to to just give them a feeling of accomplishment. It could be a garment they never got to wear. It could be a piece of jewellery. I really wouldn’t even want to say,” she told Global News.
“And I really want to hear from all workers. I’m hoping to hear from administrators, from doctors, from nurses, from cleaners, from cafeteria workers. I really want to get a full experience of what it was like to be a frontline worker at the hospital during these past months.”
Part of the reason to look forward can be found in looking back, as Museum London does not have any items from the 1918 pandemic.
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“I looked, I looked and hunted through our collection, thinking, ‘There has to be something, surely somebody collected something.’ But no.”
Lloydlangston recalled that the Woodstock museum has a wedding gown dating from the pandemic.
According to the city’s website, the wedding dress belonged to Robina Forman who married Harry Cullen on Sept. 1, 1915 but died of pneumonia in March 1919 after contracting the Spanish flu.
Museum London and LHSC say this is the second time they’ve “worked together to preserve London’s medical history.” In 2004, “Museum London became the home of LHSC’s important medical artifact collection.”
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