OLEAN
TIMES HERALD

May 22, 1989
High School Hobby Graduates Into Museum
For Eldred Man

Views From 1989

 ELDRED - A hobby which began in high school has led Joel Gilfert of Main Street, Eldred, to establish his personal military history museum to house his expanding collection. "I've always been a history buff - especially military history," Mr. Gilfert told the Times Herald. He credits Otto-Eldred history teacher Robert Longnecker with piquing his interest in the Civil War. "I started my collection with the Civil War but items were too hard to find and expensive so I decided to expand and include everything right up to the modern U.S. Army," he said.
Many of the items in Mr. Gilfert's museum, which includes mostly World War II items, have been donated by Eldred and Bradford veterans and residents. The museum represents over a year's work in laying out and placing each object. It is housed in a vacant apartment above his parent's home where he resides. "Until I had the museum I had everything stashed in my bedroom," he said with a laugh. "It got to be crowded." Patches, tinnies (special German pins manufactured for anniversaries, holidays, etc.) and buttons are lined up with military precision in glass showcases. Mr. Gilfert has a 1928 Blue and Gold yearbook from Staunton (Va.) Military Academy which was left in the house when his parents bought it. Leafing through the pages, he found former U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater was a member of the senior class. He points with pride to an 1898 U.S. Army Cavalry uniform from the Spanish-American War, donated by Louis Herrmann of Eldred.
The newest addition to the museum collection is a German World War II Navy flag which hangs on one wall. On another wall of the museum is a 46-star American flag (1901-1912) which he purchased at the former Bell Ringer Antiques of Eldred. Volumes of reference books help with research and identification. Two Japanese weather machines taken from one of the two air fields on Guam in World War II and purchased from a veteran from Mt. Jewitt stand beside military uniform jackets.
Trips to flea markets, auctions, gun shows and antique shops have resulted in many additions to his collection. His goal is to have an international collection of military issue, from the Civil War and beyond. Asked where he was going to house his expanding collection, he smiled and said, "This is an empty apartment. I'll just keep cleaning out rooms as I need them."

For The Love Of History


Eldred Man's Personal Military Collection Is A Community Museum

 

Olean Times Herald


May 26, 2002
ELDRED - Collecting military wares and sharing them with others has been a passion Eldred resident Joel Gilfert has had for years. On Memorial Day, Mr. Gilfert will be sharing his military memorabilia with veterans and citizens when he opens the doors of his military museum to the public. Mr. Gilfert will be the guest speaker at the Eldred Memorial Day parade and will open the museum after the event. While it is not new, the museum has been enlarged from years past and now is contained in a two-room facility at 194 Main Street at the corner of Central Street. The home can be identified by an Eldred World War II Honor Roll that is displayed out front. Mr. Gilfert started his collection in high school after being inspired about the Civil War by a teacher. From that time on he began reading everything he could find about the military and collecting anything that veterans and residents would give him. Many of the items were from World War II but he also has many artifacts that include a 100-year-old officer's dress blue jacket from the U.S. Army.
He continued collecting after he graduated in 1985 and by 1989 had so many military items that he decided to open his own private museum. A walk through the rooms show collections of memorabilia from Spanish-American War to Cold War eras and consist of items from the U.S., Russian, Japanese, British and German military. Mr. Gilfert said officials at the nearby Eldred World War II museum have offered to buy his items, but he refused. "I'm a hobby military historian...some people collect this, some collect that, I love military history," he said. "I'm preserving history in my own way. I hope somebody learns something when they come in here."
The museum also contains military documentaries and archive news clippings shown on a television screen and old time radio broadcasts piped through speakers. Mr. Gilfert said he tries to keep politics out of his museum and is not judgmental on items he collects. "I don't want people to come in here and think I'm promoting Germany, Japan or Communist Russia," he said. "These are just simply the artifacts of those periods of time which people lived and survived." He said he kept the museum open from 1989 to 1995 and then closed it up when he moved to Germany to work for KOA Speer Electronics. While living in Germany for five years, he purchased German and Russian military items at flea markets and from individuals. Most of his Japanese items were given to him from veterans who had collected them in the war.
Mr. Gilfert was able to have Japanese documents at the museum interpreted by Shogo Kobayashi, a retired Japanese businessman who is part of an exchange program at Otto-Eldred High School this year. Mr. Kobayashi teaches Japanese at the high school while trying to gain a better comprehension of English. Mr. Gilfert said that when he returned to the United States in 2000, he had collected so many items that he decided to add another room, an office and reference library and computer to the museum. Mr. Gilfert puts together a quarterly newsletter about he museum and hopes to set up a website. Until then, he said he'll continue to collect, share information and open his museum to anyone who wants to visit. "I just do this for the pleasure of owning the history, and to remember the soldiers for what they did," he said.

Eldred man remembers soldiers
every day of year

 

The Bradford Era


May 26, 2003
ELDRED - Most Americans spend only one day a year remembering and honoring those who died serving our nation, but for Joel Gilfert of Eldred every day is Memorial Day. Gilfert, who recently published his second book, "Pennsylvania and the Eldred Area at War: 1941 - 1945," has been collecting military memorabilia since the early 1980s when he was in high school. Gilfert is now the proud "curator" of a three-room military museum in Eldred, which houses more than 100 years of American military history, along with that of allies and enemies. He told The Era Sunday afternoon the inspiration for his collection came from his history teacher at Otto-Eldred Junior-Senior High School, Robert Longnecker. Longnecker is a Vietnam War veteran and a local American Civil War and Napoleonic Wars buff to boot.
"This is my passion," Gilfert said looking around at his wares. "You have to love it to do something like this." Relatives of Gilfert have served in different wars (and are honored among others at his museum), but he was not able to serve in the military, he said. He went on to say that he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army right after high school, but was rejected due to poor eyesight. Gilfert's museum, on the second floor of 194 Main Street, features uniforms, medals, supplies, flags, newspapers, magazines, photographs, letters, weapons, postcards and much more from the Spanish-American War, the Cold War era, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and a few items from the Gulf War and the current War on Terrorism.
The collection is separated into segments by country and era, and features a collection each from Germany, Communist Russia and Japan as well as those from America and allied forces. Gilfert emphasized his interest is in history, not politics. While living in Germany from 1995 to 2000, Gilfert was able to pick up many artifacts and also traveled to battle and grave sites, all the while interviewing Europeans about their thoughts on the various wars. Gilfert lived in Germany while working for KOA Speer Electronics out of Bradford, where he is still employed. In Belgium, he was visiting a surplus/antique shop and actually came across a box meant to store spare parts (tubes, vibrators, fuses and lamps) for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Oddly enough, the box and parts were made by Kane Manufacturing Company out of Kane.
Most of his collection, however, was donated or purchased on the Internet auction site eBay, Gilfert said. Gilfert's museum also features a Wall of Honor, with fallen soldiers from the Eldred, Rixford, Duke Center and Otto Township areas. Uniforms and short histories on some of the veterans from the rest of McKean County - serving in both World Wars, Vietnam and Korea - are also displayed. Gilfert, who also published a quarterly newsletter, said that felt writing and publishing was the next logical step in his military history collecting process. He has also published a book on the history of Duke Center circa 1880. A third book, this one on the Battle of the Bulge, is currently in the works, Gilfert said.