Photograph by Greg Rannells
The house itself is magic: a fanciful white Victorian, the last on Kirkwood Road. The first president of A.G. Edwards built it in 1901. Then he started selling ice-cream cones. (He directed the concession area at the 1904 World’s Fair.) Seven decades later, a wrecking ball hovered—until two young mothers decided the house would make a perfect children’s museum. Zagat now rates that museum the top family attraction in the country, and its original 5,000 square feet have mushroomed to more than 50,000. Inside, there’s more magic: a phosphorus shadow wall, a magnet room, a stream under glass, a Van de Graaff generator that stands your hair on end, an Oval Office, a Poet Tree, giant musical instruments designed by an artist in Jerusalem—and a longtime director who understands how kids think.
How long have you worked here?
Almost 30 years. The founders had already toured other children’s museums, found the space, and researched the exhibits when they called me. They had a file of clips; they’d been following my work at Queeny Park!
Did you have kids when you started work?
No, in fact that was the condition they set: I couldn’t get pregnant for two years! [She sends a metal ball whizzing around a loop, an example of centrifugal motion, and grins.] The Magic House opened October 16, 1979, and my daughter was due October 16, 1981. She really was a surprise—I really wasn’t planning on having a child—but luckily I was able to keep my word!
This building’s filled with good design—I’m guessing it’s not accidental.
We’d been to children’s museums where they had paper signs up. [She winces.] Even when we only had two employees, one was a graphic designer. We always felt kids should be surrounded by beauty.
Like the glass balloons in the new lobby?
Yes—I was with my family in Florida, saw some in a gift shop, and imagined a ceilingful. So we contacted the artist, and he was very generous. The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis has a great Chihuly in its lobby, and we feel like our $2,500 worth of balloons make the same impact.
What are you happiest about in your dramatic new expansion?
More space! The big bathrooms—it could take forever for a school group. The big elevator—we used to bring exhibits in on the second story with a forklift! And we have a gift shop and the Picnic Basket Café—it’s like all of a sudden we’re a grown-up museum.
But still for children. What have the past three decades taught you about them?
That they really want to work. They want to feel grown-up, like they’re making a difference. They want to feel powerful.
Why?
I think it’s just inherent. My own children have always been fairly opinionated. Sometimes you’re like, “Oh, just do what I say!” But the very traits that are the most difficult for a child’s parents are the most important to have as an adult. If you squelch them early on…
The traits won’t be there when you want them. OK, so how do you make kids feel powerful?
Give them a voice. In the Star-Spangled Center, we’re piloting the Majority Rules program: We give children real issues to debate and vote on. Should it be a law that children can skateboard on public sidewalks? Should you have to wear your seatbelt on a school bus? Should school go year-round?
What exhibit would you add now, given an unlimited budget?
Oh, we wanted to have one called The Time Machine, where you’d walk through a contraption and enter a different period of history—ancient Greece, the Wild Wild West—and every year it would change.
How do you go about making a museum that’s this much fun?
Actually, we don’t have “fun” in our mission statement. We have “joy.” Even though this is a place where children are happy, if you look around, they are not really being silly. They are engrossed in what they’re doing. It’s not a silly happy.
Have you had any noteworthy guests?
Oh, quite a few. Susan Sarandon came here with her family quite a bit when she was filming White Palace; she even mentioned us on-air. And when we first opened, we looked outside and saw a chimpanzee in line, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a ball cap. His trainer was performing at Six Flags and wanted to bring him in. When we said we didn’t think so, the trainer was livid: “This chimpanzee has eaten at the best restaurants in Europe!”
Doesn’t your husband, Brock, work someplace magical, too?
He’s the director of Purina Farms. Our grandson’s the luckiest grandchild in St. Louis!
If you were locked in the Magic House overnight, where would you hang out?
Probably the Star-Spangled Center, learning more about the presidents. I hate to pick Lincoln because it sounds so trite… Maybe I’d start with Teddy Roosevelt. The children always love that he had quite a menagerie of pets in the White House!
You’ve got a lot outside, too—the construction site, the garden…
Children are spending too much time in front of screens. One of our goals is to reconnect them with nature.
Is technology changing how kids’ minds work?
I really don’t think so. We have seen through time how much they love hands-on learning, making choices, using real materials, using real tools. We integrate a lot of technology because that’s the way life is now, and children are very comfortable with it. But it’s still the hands-on experiences they’re drawn to. To a child, a computer’s no different than a telephone is to us: “Oh, big deal.”
What sparks kids’ imaginations?
Solving problems themselves. Being able to explore something and discover the results on their own. Using all their senses. But it’s hard. Teachers are so overwhelmed every day with what they need to teach. I was on the Rockwood school board for nine years—that really helped me see what they were up against. I think the focus on standardized tests and the way No Child Left Behind is being implemented is having a negative impact on how schools teach. Children need to love to learn and understand themselves as learners, not test-takers.
This place is very hands-on—But you also have exhibits to intrigue shy, brainy kids.
That’s probably because I’m actually not a hands-on learner! I was a kid who loved reading; my goal was to read every book in the library. [She’s keying as she speaks, creating a police sketch for the forensic lab in the detective area.] That’s why I love doing research for the exhibits. [She pushes the revolving bookcase, enters the secret room, then magically opens a secret wardrobe stocked with lab coats.]
I bet a lot of careers are inspired here.
That is a goal…
So what’s the fastest way to kill children’s sense of imagination?
Tell them they are wrong. It’s the same rules as a brainstorming session in a business: You need to allow for free choice and free exploration. As soon as an adult’s saying, “There’s a better way to do it,” they withdraw, thinking, “I’m just not good enough.”
What’s your guiding philosophy?
To be a place where childhood is respected, protected, and celebrated. In so many ways, society is kind of limiting childhood. When we expanded, the feedback we got from the community was “Do something for 10- and 12-year-olds.” Childhood is being compressed, and children are forced into the teenage years too quickly. They’re drawn into texting and Hannah Montana.
When you added the Children’s Village—complete with pizza delivery, bank, grocery, and working phones—how did you know the kids who’d never met before would cooperate to make it work?
We took a leap of faith. We knew it’d be OK for school groups; the risk was our public hours. But children of all ages and backgrounds are working together to run the town. I think children are naturally cooperative; it’s when they get bored or frustrated that you see different kinds of behavior.
How do kids with learning disabilities or behavior problems handle The Magic House?
Parents of children with autism say it’s the one place they can bring them; children with behavior disorders come and are perfectly well-behaved. They immediately know this is their space.
Just because it’s child-centered? Is it really that simple?
I think it must be. That, and our staff are so welcoming. At so many places, children have to be on their best behavior. We elicit that from them, but we have created a space where it’s easy to be a child—and where we want you to be a child.
And the grown-ups? Any luck rescuing their inner child?
I think there is a natural curiosity in children, and a kind of natural empathy and wonder at the world. For an adult to recapture that, well, it just sounds trite to say, “Try to find something you are passionate about,” but that’s what it’s about. Self-help books, business books, it’s all about passion, finding something you are committed to. It gives you a spark.
What was your childhood like?
My mom was an early-childhood educator and an artist, so I was immersed. I had a pretty idyllic childhood. [She hesitates.] I mean idyllic in terms of learning and culture. I mean, my parents got divorced… I think everybody has a tough life, one way or another, and every one of us comes with some scars and things we want to fix within ourselves. It’s just a matter of getting children to have enough resiliency to feel like, “I can overcome these obstacles.”
What is it you love about children?
That they are so smart, so capable, so amazing at taking in the world and turning those experiences into memory. The memories we give children are what turn them into the adults they are going to be.
