In a video recorded in 1983, Miss Alberta Bair invites a small group into her home, including an unseen camera operator, and her friends, Phil and Lee Rostad. The film starts as though scripted, albeit loosely, with Alberta greeting her “guests” at the formal entry of the home, located between the pine room and the dining room. Mr. Rostad narrates the visit, directing questions at Miss Bair that were intended to shape the encounter as a recorded formal tour of the house. Going from room to room, Miss Bair points out various antiques and objects and remarks on the circumstances of their purchase and on their beauty, always referencing with pride and fondness her sister, Marguerite Bair Lamb, “Sissy.” It is a rough-hewn document, unedited, often over-lit, some details hard to make out, but it is also a very important source—Alberta Bair in her own words, representing her family, a first-person narrative of the stories that shaped her family’s lives and the Bair family collection. Her stories and the collection together encompass their journey, from Ohio to Montana to the Pacific Northwest and back, with later stops in Paris, London, Rome, and points in between. When visitors tour the home now, twenty-eight years later, the house, the barn, the root cellar, and the new art museum, the years come together like a collage; vivid, idiosyncratic, alive.

As the home evolved with additions and new designs and refurbishments during the family’s lifetime, so has the museum evolved. Museums are more than the repositories of objects; they are the cultural, civic, and educational centers of communities. Museums exhibit, conserve, research, interpret, and educate. The Charles M. Bair Family Museum’s goal is to inspire, to create opportunities, to guide discovery and learning, and to expand our dialogue with history; these were the cherished aims and foremost desires of Marguerite Bair Lamb and Alberta Bair. Seeking an appropriate balance between the display of the objects and their care, the new museum has been built to improve the conservation environment for at-risk objects in the collection and thus to preserve them for many generations to come. At the same time, the house museum continues to embody the essence of the family’s history and their day-to-day lives.

At the time of her passing, Alberta was consulting with museum professionals, curators, and conservators who were providing guidance and developing reports about the condition of various objects in the collection. Today, we are continuing with this work. It is our belief that the newest addition to the Bair Family Home site will provide additional opportunities for visitors to analyze, evaluate, enjoy, study, and learn from the Bair family’s legacy.

Our goal is to make Marguerite Bair Lamb and Alberta Bair proud of their home, proud of their contributions to Montana society and its citizens, and proud of their family’s legacy.

Elizabeth Guheen
Director and Chief Curator