Happy Birthday to Alice!
Alice Murray turns 99-years-young today (November 27). Happy Birthday Alice!
Murray Challenge
Alice Murray has issued a $20,000 challenge in honor if her late husband Dr. William (Bill) Murray, the founder of Living History Farms. Here’s how the challenge works. If you make a new gift to LHF—or increase the size of your gift from last year—Alice will match your gift dollar-for-dollar. If you renew at the same level of support, Alice will match every dollar you give with fifty cents. Alice has watched the Farms grow since it was just a dream that she and Bill shared more than four decades ago. Typical museums preserve our history by displaying artifacts in exhibits behind glass. Their dream was to change that by having visitors interact with living exhibits—working farms from different eras and a populated prairie town—so visitors would walk away with a greater understanding of our past than they ever could by walking through a typical museum. With Alice's challenge and another $20,000 in responding gifts from the community, $40,000 will be raised to support the programs and operations of Living History Farms. Your support will keep their shared dream alive for the 120,000 visitors who visit the Farms each year.
Raised: $63,138
Goal: $40,000
initiative news
Bill and Alice's First Date
Alice Murray tells a great story about her first date with the man who would become her second husband. She (then Alice Van Wert) and Bill had both lost their first spouses to illness. Memorably, Bill took her to the site of the future Living History Farms. They toured the Flynn Mansion—which was then pretty much a shambles—and wound up gazing at the distant skyline of Des Moines from the cupola. All the while, Bill was talking excitedly about this vision for the Farms. And Alice says she has always thought it was a bit of a test—that if she couldn’t see the same potential as he, their first date could also be their last. Needless to say, she shared his enthusiasm then—and, as evidenced by her recent challenge gift—she still does to this day.