The Grove City Welcome Center and Museum boasts a diverse collection of artifacts, including a 1912 Ford Model T, 100-year-old player piano, prehistoric Indigenous American arrowheads and much more.
Central to the Museum is curator and Grove City native Leanne Watkins, who became curator in 2021.
Although she doesn’t have a formal background in history or curatorship, she says her fascination with Grove City’s history has only grown alongside her personal fulfillment as she ventures into a new chapter of life.
Finding her fit
Amanda Stevens
Long before her curatorship, Watkins had ambitions of working for a publishing house or in illustration. She attended Savannah College of Art and Design in 1991, later earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration.
However, she determined the art world was not for her and picked up a job as a workers’ compensation claims manager, where she stayed for several years.
After marrying her husband, Lance, in 2000 and starting a family, Watkins left the workforce to be home with her children.
She raised her daughters, Skyler, Chloe and Cordelia, in Grove City, enjoying the familiar small-town feel and taking her family to staple events from her own childhood, such as Arts in the Alley and fireworks at Beulah Park.
As her kids grew up, she began looking to gradually get back into the workforce, though she didn’t want to return to a high-stress office job.
“I wanted something that would fit into my schedule. My kids had activities in the evenings and on the weekends. You don’t want to miss any of that,” she says.
After attending some Southwest Franklin County Historical Society meetings, Watkins began volunteering as office manager around 2018.
Historical connections
Even before volunteering, Watkins had always had an interest in history. Growing up, her family went to museums and historical sites for family vacations, such as Indigenous American mounds or battlefields.
Amanda Stevens
Additionally, she was already well-connected with the Historical Society: Her grandparents, Betty and James “Jim” Rae, were founding members, and her parents gave her a lifetime membership for a birthday.
As office manager, Watkins helped organize the Museum’s large collection of pictures, family files and other Grove City history-related items donated by community members.
When the paid position of curator opened in 2021, she jumped at the chance and was hired.
“This here was a perfect fit, and I was so excited when it came along and I got hired,” Watkins says. “It’s a part-time job and that’s just what I needed for my kids’ schedule, and that was the most important thing at that time.”
Amanda Stevens
Curating confidence
Watkins says the curator role built upon her office manager position, with her role including overseeing files and inventory, doing research for exhibits and guiding tours of local historical sites, such as the Grant-Sawyer Home and Century Village.
Amanda Stevens
One particular focus of hers was expanding the signage and information available to visitors.
“I’m very familiar with going to museums, and you want to know what you’re looking at and have as much information as you can,” Watkins says.
She says the upper level of the Museum is “like Christmas.”
“You hunt through things and find new artifacts, and then you do the research on them and share that, especially if there’s a family name attached that people can recognize in the city, like a street,” Watkins says. “It helps bring it all together.”
Her favorite exhibits are the prehistoric Indigenous American artifacts, all of which were found on the Haughn Farm, as well as the Civil War exhibit, featuring soldiers from Grove City.
Amanda Stevens
As the primary researcher and creator behind all the signage for the Museum’s exhibits, she says her knowledge has helped her become more self-assured.
“I was painfully shy as a teenager and then I went into that high-stress business world, but I still didn’t have to talk to people,” Watkins says. “Coming into this, I found that it brought me out of my shell, talking about things that I actually enjoy.”
She especially enjoys giving tours at the Grant-Sawyer Home.
“(The Historical Society) has renovated that so beautifully and I love being down there,” Watkins says. “I know that history in and out, so it comes very easy.”
Amanda Stevens, Leanne Watkins
Her next chapter
Besides her role at the Museum, Watkins has been a member of the Grove City Writers’ Group for 13 years and is a published author.
Leanne Watkins
In 2023, she published the first installment of her six-book young adult series, The Delpine Diaries, which she started writing before getting married. She published the second book this past March, and in April, she published a humorous memoir about her and her husband’s experience living on a Washington Court House farm for eight years.
Watkins says she’s always writing.
“Instead of watching TV, you can sit there and create. It’s escapism,” Watkins says. “If you’ve had a bad day, you just sit and write, and you can go in any direction you want to go.”
She says her desire to write and publish grew from both her kids and husband enjoying her stories, and her oldest daughter, Skyler, helps her edit her books.
With all three daughters grown and the youngest two in college, Watkins says she and Lance are ready for a slower pace of life, returning to the countryside and planning trips to historical sites, such as Gettysburg.
However, she calls Grove City home and looks forward to continuing her work at the Museum.
“I like to say I have the best job in Grove City,” Watkins says.
Amanda Stevens is a contributing writer at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at astevens@cityscenemediagroup.com.
