Since opening in 1988, the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia in Staunton has shown visitors how European, African, and Indigenous traditions blended to shape American folklife. It also sparks ideas that follow guests long after they leave.
Environmental educator, Meredith McCool, is one example. As a child, she attended the Frontier Culture Museum’s programs, including the construction of the German farm. “I remember standing in red clay mud, mixing daub to hold the wattle together,” she said, recalling how thrilling it felt to help raise a historic structure.
Those early programs also paired local children with participants in a summer fresh-air initiative. McCool spent four weekly sessions exploring different farms alongside a city girl who became her friend. Eating gingerbread together, she realized “the Frontier Culture Museum offered access to things we wouldn’t otherwise have.”
The experience guided her studies at William & Mary, where she volunteered at the Virginia Living Museum before earning a degree in environmental geology. After graduation, she accepted a Fish and Wildlife Service internship in Alaska and discovered her vocation. Environmental education, she decided, combined her love of science with the joy that she had found ankle-deep in Virginia clay.
McCool returned to school for teaching credentials and eventually a doctorate. She has since worked as an environmental educator, elementary teacher, and college professor. Today, she is business manager for Working House and program director for Sunshine Springs Farm, which she and her sister, Caroline, are renovating near Arbor Hill to host outdoor programs on stewardship and lifelong learning.
While construction continues, McCool is partnering with Augusta County Parks and Recreation on a Sustained Outdoor Learning Program that rotates through four county parks. Once the farm is ready, sessions will move to its fields and streams.
Looking back, she credits the Frontier Culture Museum with nurturing an interest that already existed: “The Frontier Culture Museum didn’t necessarily plant the seed, but it absolutely fueled the spark.”
Learn more about the Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia at frontiermuseum.org.
For information on Working House and Sunshine Springs Farm, visit workinghouseva.com.
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