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Fairfield library hosts exhibit honoring Mark Shafer
FAIRFIELD — The Fairfield Public Library has an exhibit to honor former art teacher and historian Mark Shafer.
The exhibit was created by Carnegie Historical Museum volunteers Kathy Tollenaere and Therese Cummiskey, along with Shafer’s wife, Susan. The three women selected photos, paintings and other items from Shafer’s life to display in a glass case at the library, which the museum has been using as a rotating exhibit for the past 1.5 years.
The exhibit was finished on Feb. 1, and will remain up through the end of July, so residents still have time to visit it if they haven’t already.
Tollenaere said she and Cummiskey wanted to do something to honor Shafer, who was the director of the Carnegie Historical Museum after his retirement from teaching art in the Fairfield Community School District. He died on Dec. 17, 2022.
“Mark was still fresh in our minds, and we wanted to do a tribute,” Tollenaere said. “Therese and I always do these exhibits together, and we thought it would be nice to focus on Mark’s upbringing, and to progress through his life to display the different things he was involved in.”
One section of the exhibit focuses on Shafer’s early life, with photos of him as a boy. Shafer was featured in a newspaper article when he was a boy because he contracted polio and had to live in an iron lung, just before the polio vaccine was developed. Shafer was among the most knowledgeable people in Fairfield about the town’s history, and that’s reflected in this exhibit, too, which contains a Louden pulley from the famous Louden Machinery Company.
Susan said Shafer collected ties representing famous works of art. He wore those ties to school and gave his students extra credit if they corrected guessed the artists responsible.
Fairfield Library Director Al Schmidt Mickunas said he’s been very pleased at this collaboration between the library and the museum.
“This is really an extension of the museum,” Schmidt Mickunas said. “The library wants to do more to bring people’s attention to history.”
Tollenaere and Cummiskey have been rotating the exhibit at the library every six months since they started it. Tollenaere said they are always open to suggestions for new exhibits.
Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com
