** Please Note the Open House will be from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Indian Museum, while the musical performance of Native American music will start at 2 p.m. at the Eicher Arts Center next door. **
A celebrated singer of Native-American songs will perform at the Eicher Arts Center in Ephrata on Nov. 10, on the afternoon when the center’s Eastern Woodland Native-American Museum reopens to the public.
Terry Strongheart, whose ancestry is Native American and Danish, has garnered seven Native American Music Award nominations. He will perform at 2 p.m. at the Eicher Arts Center, 407 Cocalico St. in Ephrata Borough’s Grater Park. Admission is free. Refreshments will be provided.
The museum is in the smaller Eicher building next door that had been known as the Eicher Sisters House. It has held a collection of Native American artifacts, art and educational materials for decades, but for more than a year has not been open to the public. With new items added, the museum on Nov. 10 will have an open house from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Both historic Eicher buildings were saved from demolition in the 1980s. What is now the front room of the museum building was originally home in the 1730s to Maria and Anna Eicher, daughters of immigrant Daniel Eicher, who were interested in the spiritual practices of the nearby Ephrata Cloister.
“Over the years,” Eicher coordinator Jim DeFilippis said, “the facility was used for many different purposes. In the 1980s, J. Gordon McQuate, Mr. and Mrs. Albert Rogers, A. LaVerne Zell and other interested parties began using the site as a combination Native American shop and museum.” The museum focus is on Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands prior to the arrival of Europeans and during the early years of European settlements, although items related to other Native Americans are included in its collection.
“Thanks to the dedication and assistance of Bill Miller and Tim Eisenberger,” DeFilippis said, “we are now endeavoring to reopen the museum as an educational venue on a limited-time basis.”
Anyone with questions may call the museum at 717-738-3084.
