Martha Slyter, former Grundy County Superintendent of Schools from 1951 to 1979, sold her little house on Grand Ridge Road, Mazon for $50,000 and willed that money to the Grundy County Historical Society on the stipulation that it be used toward getting a museum. If that didn’t happen the money would be forfeited.
The settee and matching chair belonged to her mother, a great granddaughter of Gersham Isham who came to Old Mazon in 1834 and settled on the Bloomington Chicago Trail.
The tea table and kerosene parlor lamp came from the Nelson Beal house in Verona. Margaret Walsh Beal made the wall hanging.
In the corner cabinet there are several cut glass pieces made by Donald Nelson when he worked at the Johnson and Carlson Cut Glass Factory which operated on Armstrong Street from 1912 to 1922.