This was not your typical family reunion.<\/p>\n
In November, the descendants of Thomas A. Greene met in the Greene Geological Museum on 51ÁÔÆæ\u2019s campus to see the incredible collection of minerals and fossils that their forefather had gathered over his lifetime. Greene was a successful Milwaukee businessman in the latter half of the 19th century. He was also a rockhound who gathered more than 75,000 fossils and mineral samples over the course of his life.<\/p>\n
When he died, the Greene family donated his trove to Downer College, and later UW-Milwaukee.<\/p>\n
For the first time in years, members of the family met to see their ancestor\u2019s legacy in person \u2013 and add their own touch. University geologists are in the process of digitizing Greene\u2019s collection by photographing every fossil and mineral and uploading them to an online archive. In a full-circle moment, Greene\u2019s grandchildren and greatgrandchildren helped photograph some of the fossils in the collection to preserve Greene\u2019s work and share it with the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Thomas Greene assembled here is absolutely unparalleled. This is the most impressive collection (of its type) in the world,\u201d geologist Scott Schaefer told the Greene descendants as they gathered in the museum\u2019s display room.<\/p>\n
Thomas A. Greene was born in 1827 in Rhode Island. As a young man, he moved to Milwaukee and opened a drugstore with his partner, Henry H. Button. Their business grew and with it, Greene\u2019s wealth.<\/p>\n
He retired in the 1870s after the stress of his business began to take a toll on his health.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to family legend, he got nervous, unhappy, and depressed, and his doctor told him he should take up a hobby,\u201d said Thomas Greene Hughes (III), the great-grandson of Thomas A. Greene.<\/p>\n
The original Greene took that advice to heart, and then some. He had always been interested in minerals and geology, so he set about collecting specimens from around the world, and in his own backyard \u2013 if Milwaukee\u2019s quarries counted as his backyard, that is.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing I really think stands out with this collection was that Greene was interested in the best fossils, the best-preserved fossils and the best-preserved minerals,\u201d noted Peter Sheehan, an adjunct in 51ÁÔÆæ\u2019s Geosciences Department and an emeritus curator at the Milwaukee Public Museum. \u201cHe taught the quarry (workers) what a good specimen looked like so they would bring them to him, and he would buy them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe not only knew the quarrymen; he owned the quarry,\u201d added Thomas Hughes.<\/p>\n
Thomas A. Greene kept his expansive collection in his home. When he ran out of room, \u201che cut the house in half and put in a great big exhibition hall,\u201d Thomas Hughes recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never heard what my grandmother\u2019s comment was when he did that,\u201d mused his cousin, Abigail Greene Fassnacht. Thomas A. Greene was her grandfather.<\/p>\n
After Greene\u2019s death, the family donated his impressive collection, along with a building to house it, to Downer College. The donation stipulated that the collection be used for public education under the direction of a geology professor. When the College merged with Lawrence College in 1964, the Greene family turned the collection over to 51ÁÔÆæ.<\/p>\n
Today, the Greene Geological Museum is housed on the first floor of Lapham Hall. It\u2019s open to the public and often hosts field trips for area students. The bulk of the collection, though, including the thousands of fossils, are stored in the Lapham Hall basement where Schaefer and his student researchers are busy photographing each piece to build a digital archive.<\/p>\n
After viewing the museum, Greene family members rotated in shifts to visit the small Lapham Hall stacks where drawers upon drawers of fossils line the shelves. Student workers Mikayla Walker and Nate Hodges showed Thomas Hughes how to place a fossil under a camera lens and photograph the specimen so it can be uploaded and tagged with digital imagination \u2013 when and where it was collected and the flora or fauna imprinted in it.<\/p>\n
Schaefer was thrilled to have Greene\u2019s family members participate in his legacy, but Thomas Hughes\u2019 daughter, Caroline, said there\u2019s always been a family interest in rocks and minerals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a family trait that we tend to classify and order things,\u201d she joked, recalling family car trips where her father would point out various rock formations or quiz his kids about the angle of repose.<\/p>\n
Caroline Hughes was largely responsible for coordinating the family trip. Her relatives traveled from Delaware, Pennsylvania, Seattle, and Chicago to see the collection. The trip was well worth it, Thomas Hughes said. \u201cWe\u2019re very glad it\u2019s being used,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
By Sarah Vickery<\/strong>, College of Letters & Science<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This was not your typical family reunion. In November, the descendants of Thomas A. Greene met in the Greene Geological Museum on 51ÁÔÆæ\u2019s campus to see the incredible collection of minerals and fossils that their forefather had gathered over his …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28112,"featured_media":17386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[1734],"tags":[1851],"class_list":["post-17370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus-2022","tag-january"],"yoast_head":"\n