For A Folk Art Treasure

Story and Photo by Kennie Lyn Klingback

In 1991, the Sweet-Montour Syringa Club engaged the help of our community to purchase the old Grange Hall in Sweet. As the club’s historian, I remember when we took guardianship, we assumed responsibility not only for the building but for the safekeeping of its history and contents, including an unusual painting displayed in the hall.

After World War II, around 1946, ranch wife and Grange member Aralene Goodwin applied crushed egg shells to a six-by-four-foot board of pressed wood and painted a rural scene. The painting was used in exhibits set up by the Grange at fairs in southwestern Idaho. In between traveling to fairs, the picture was hung on a wall at the back of the stage, where little kids picked off the eggshells.