Historical society to host candlelight tours of Doctor’s House
The Glendale Historical Society will once again give area residents a taste of Christmas in the 1800s during the annual candlelight tour of the Doctor’s House museum and gazebo that will take place twice this holiday season.
Since 1994, the historic Doctor’s House in Brand Park — a restored Queen Anne-Eastlake-style home originally built around 1888 in central Glendale — has been the site for self-guided tours, music and holiday activities in the same vein as a Victorian-era Christmas.
“It will really create a feeling as if you stepped back in time,” said Peter Rusch, the museum’s curator. “It takes a lot to put it all together and is truly a community project shared by the people of Glendale.”
This year’s theme is “Gingerbread and Spice.” At the event, guests will learn about the origins of the gingerbread man and can also try their hand at icing a gingerbread cookie in the kitchen, Rusch said.
As part of a special exhibit, the house will be filled with authentic seasonal music from many years ago.
Music enthusiast Galen Wilkes will be at the tours playing songs from the early 1900s on a 1908 Edison phonograph.
Wilkes said his interest in vintage music and silent movies started when he was about 3 years old, growing up in Connecticut in the 1950s. His father brought him to a co-worker’s house. Both men were engineers, working at General Dynamics.
Wilkes said the co-worker had a manual player piano, but he connected its bellows to a vacuum cleaner hose so it could play itself.
“[The vacuum cleaner] was in the basement, so you couldn’t hear it,” he said, adding that the two were connected through the floor.
“That was probably one of the first times I was exposed to anything from that era,” he said.
Upstairs at the Doctor’s House, guests can learn about the life of silent-screen actress and filmmaker Nell Shipman, who lived in the house from 1917 to 1920.
In the children’s room, there will be readings of various Christmas stories and there will be hot cocoa and cider as well as coffee available on the gazebo.
The tours will be conducted from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. this Saturday and Dec. 16. Brand Park is located at 1601 W. Mountain St., Glendale.
A $10 donation is requested.
Twitter: @JeffLanda
