DIANE MAKAR MURPHY From teacher to tour guide -- it's all education

In 1943, Miss Jones became Mrs. Honey -- a more appropriate name for a woman of Dorothy Honey's disposition. At 87, she is crowned with silver curls and a gracious nature reflected in the teakettle whistling its readiness for a guest.
Her apartment is decorated with acquisitions from world travels. Japan, Malaysia, China, the Soviet Union, Israel, Greece and Wales have all seen Mrs. Honey. Budapest, Paris, London and Prague have all caught her interest.
A lamp much like Aladdin's that she bought in Turkey sits on an end table. Two other tables, acquired in India, are set together in the living room. A glass curio cabinet in her dining room houses figurines and glassware from Norway and Denmark, among other pieces from places she has been.
It is easy to imagine Mrs. Honey a devotee of a museum -- nearly having one herself. And she is. For almost 30 years, Honey has worked at the Arms Family Museum in Youngstown.
After becoming a teacher, librarian, guidance counselor and mother of one daughter, Honey signed on as a tour guide at the museum, a decade old, in 1974. "It was just all pegboard then," she said, pointing out that visitors read their way through a "maze of free-standing bulletin board structures."
Other duties
A few years later, she was asked to be registrar. Said Honey, "I was in charge of acquisitions, picking up donations, and answering the telephone for five years." She took part in brainstorming sessions to develop exhibits as well.
"We did a really big exhibit on high school athletics," she said. "One of the exciting ones I thought of was all kinds of fans. We had ostrich feather ones, Japanese ones, scenic ones."
"Another good exhibit was bathing suits. We had wool ones," she said, admitting these were uncomfortably heavy in actual use!
"One exhibit featured bridal gowns. The oldest ones we had were not white because the ladies would use them again after the wedding for other occasions. I think we had gowns from the 1860s through to the 1950s," Honey said.
An "absolutely fascinating" display was of the Civil War, she said. "It was lovely. We had clothing, books listing regiments, letters and diaries," Honey recalled. It brought in genealogists and history buffs and a couple who flew in from West Virginia just to see the exhibit.
Teacher at heart
After her time as registrar, Honey again became a guide for the museum and has been one ever since. "I enjoy that," she said.
Little wonder -- it is in many ways like teaching, her first love. "I never had to get my head screwed on right," Honey said. "I always knew I wanted to teach."
A graduate of Flora Stone Mathers School (now Case Western Reserve), Honey for years taught English and journalism at Austintown Fitch High School. She began her career, however, in 1937 teaching English and coaching plays (even playing the lead once when a student got mumps) at Leesville School.
When she married high school friend Burton Honey in 1943, her job teaching (as was the custom of the time) ended. She took a job as a librarian, her husband went off to war, and her daughter, Suzanne, now a teacher at Poland Seminary (Sue Van Meter), was born.
She went back to teaching in 1952, at Fitch, then became a counselor, then guidance coordinator at the school until 1974.
When Burt, who had been principal at East High School, died in 1978, Honey became registrar at the Arms for a few years. She has served under three directors and seen the exhibits go from pegboard to sophisticated displays -- from a time when tour guides might be seen wearing historical artifacts, to one in which white gloves must be donned to touch acquisitions.
This winter, Mrs. Honey will work a little less, conceding that her age and icy roads do not mix, but she intends to remain a sweet part of the Arms museum's history.
murphy@vindy.com