This is part of an article by Rol & Jo Summit, edited for this website.
In a sense, the arguably foredoomed machine fell into rescuing hands. Many of the carvings, at least, have been returned to public view. Within six years of his Edgewater purchase, Freels would establish the nonprofit Freels Foundation with the aim of promoting the art of the American carousel with a three-fold promise: to conduct research on the history of the carousel industry; to collect, preserve, and restore significant figures; and to lend its resources and talents to production of educational exhibits, “sharing with an ever widening public, recognition of carousel carving as an Art Form”.
The restored Monarch Park carousel Cherub Horse on display July 1971 in the Library of
California State University in Fresno, CA., part of a public show generated by Larry Freel.
Image by Rol Sumnmit.
In 1987 the Freels Foundation opened the American Carousel Museum in San Francisco, CA where it provided exhibitions and restoration demonstrations during its ten year tenure. In addition to the museum’s in-house displays, its figures were placed along the terminal walkways of the San Francisco airport, where thousands of travelers passed by.
The restored Monarch Park carousel Angel Horse on display July 1971 in the Library of
California State University in Fresno, CA., part of a public show generated by Larry Freel.
Rol Sumnmit collection.
Was the Monarch carousel really lost again from Edgewater in1974? Or was it lost earlier when the flood made it inoperable? Is there a rightful place for individual carvings other than on their original platforms? If the operating sum of its parts is lost forever, is there some level of redemption in the restoration and exhibition of its parts? Is there room for additional angels on the head of the pin?
The restored Monarch Park Carousel Chariot on display July 1971 in the Library of
California State University in Fresno, CA., part of a public show generated by Larry Freel.
Image by Rol Sumnmit.
Dave Anderton and Bill Passauer hoped to discover the fate of a carousel they remembered with some amount of nostalgia from childhood. Each was in touch with hundreds of people with potentially emotional memories that might clarify the murky history of the Monarch’s migration. No help. Together they set out to follow the ambiguous clues in archaic papers. Bill took the job of searching official, objective Michigan records and relevant websites. Finally, in 2009, he had to accept defeat:
On January 12, 2012, in something of a last resort, Dave reached out to the NCA for help through our editor, Dan Robinson, concluding:
THANKS AGAIN,
DAVE ANDERTON
That one e-mail was the vital tug on the NCA grapevine through Bette Largent and Barbara Charles. The rest is history.
When the Edgewater Park machine disappeared in 1974 the infant NCA was gathering together a growing herd of previously isolated people who had a thing for wooden horses. Outside of its intended goals of conservation of whole machines, that new community served also as a marketplace for collectable carvings and its invigorated dealers. The tattered Monarch/Walled Lake/Edgewater carousel would be eligible for rebirth today, thanks in large part to nearly a half century of growth of the NCA goals. Back then it didn’t stand a chance.
More subtly apparent than its successes in whole-carousel conservation is the amazing capacity within the organization to accumulate, preserve, and share tangles of arcane data peculiar to our beloved carousel industry and its history. It took years of objective research for the Oil City investigators to approach an answer, a revelation that developed within days of their outreach to subjective merry-go-maniacs.
Pat Dentzel, Census Chairman and a Director of the National Carousel Association, says it best: “Like a puzzle, we grab each piece of carousel history that is placed before us. We examine it; turn it upside down and sideways, always trying to fit it in with our partially assembled history. You can’t force the piece to fit. Each piece finally drops into place and the carousel puzzle becomes clearer. Unfortunately the carousel puzzle is one of those jumbo 10,000 piece offerings!”
Pullen Park, Raleigh, North Carolina
Ontario Beach Park, Rochester, New York