In October, the Morris & District Centennial Museum received a donation offer for a longcase clock from longtime Morris resident Walter Dreger.
Dreger had put his Kennedy Street home up for sale, and the property sold before he had found a place to move.
“We didn’t think the house would sell so fast,” said Dreger’s son Clayton. “The house was sold and dad didn’t have a place to live. He was concerned about the clock.”
“The people that bought my home wanted the clock. I didn’t want to leave it and I didn’t want it to go to strangers,” said the elder Dreger.
“How do we move such an artifact?” questioned Lou Erickson, a volunteer board museum board member. “Just after receiving the phone call from Mr. Dreger, I got a call from Ray Waldner and Burt Cornelsen from Rosenort looking for information about our museum. I asked them if they could move a grandfather clock. It was serendipitous.”
According to the Oxford Dictionary, longcase clocks were called grandfather clocks after a 1876 Henry Clay Work song “My Grandfather’s Clock.” The song tells the story from a grandchild’s point of view of his grandfather’s clock. They purchased the clock on the morning of the grandfather’s birth, and it has worked perfectly for 90 years. After the grandpa dies, the clock suddenly stops, and never works again.
At a presentation at the museum last week, the 90-year-old Dreger sang that song.
“When my dad passed in 1981, I wanted a memorial of some sort,” Dreger recalled. “I purchased the clock at the Hudson’s Bay in Winnipeg for $2,000. They delivered it straight to my home.”
William and Augusta Dreger purchased the farm land in Sewell, Manitoba during a government land sale. They were the first homesteaders. Born in 1934, Dreger grew up Sewell and moved to Morris in 1963 following his marriage to his wife, Dianna Martha Dreger.
Besides the clock, Dreger provided the museum with the documentation of providence: a faded, dog-eared owner’s manual and trade brochure with pictures of all models of long case clocks created by the company.
Since the clock found a new home, Ed’s Clock Repair has tuned it in Winnipeg to keep its time-tolling chime accurate.
The artifact has taken residence in the dining room display at the museum.
Organizers plan to frame the words of “My Grandfather’s Clock” and put them on display with the clock.
“We really appreciate the donation,” said Erickson. “It is another attraction for our museum.”
