Don Ross Drawings with Hidden Messages

Anna Jane Geiger grew up in Changewater and was a friend of local artist Donald Ross. As such, she was the recipient of many of his annual holiday cards as well as six large framed drawings of local sites.

Her granddaughter, Jennifer Jones, long admired the drawings but believed the Lebanon Township Museum might be a better long-term home for them. The Ross drawings in and of themselves were a welcome addition to the museum’s permanent collection but even better was what was found on the reverse. On the back of five out of six of the drawings, Anna wrote out her memories of life in Changewater including many humorous, honest and heartfelt descriptions of its residents. This collection of much appreciated local artwork has been made invaluable by the firsthand recollections transcribed on them!

Tuberculosis Sanatorium Objects

The New Jersey State Sanatorium for Tuberculosis is attributed to being in Glen Gardner but as any resident of Lebanon Township knows . . . that’s just the mailing address! The Sanatorium’s 600 acres were located on the top of Mt. Kipp in Lebanon Township. Though most of the buildings are now closed and many of them have been razed, there are still some occupants there including the North Hunterdon Food Pantry, Freedom House and Veterans Haven North, the latter of which had its own mini-museum of former sanatorium artifacts in a building known as the Schoolhouse. When that space was needed, Assistant Superintendent Corinne Balaskas reached out to the Lebanon Township Museum. We were glad to accept those artifacts and bring them back to our own schoolhouse museum!

While the majority of those artifacts are on permanent display in the new Carriage Shed Museum Annex, some smaller items and photographs can be currently viewed as part of the Pandemic Art & Artifact exhibit in the Classroom Gallery.