Donation to museum comes in Tutti Frutti boxes

The Museum of Natural History at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point has received a collection of 70 songbird eggs in unusual boxes. The collection has been kept for many years in boxes that once held Tutti Frutti chewing gum, according to Ed Marks, curator of education at the museum.

The donation was delivered to the museum by Jackie Hertel, 1473 Lens Drive, Stevens Point, on behalf of her parents, Olive Gordee and the late Bert Gordee.

A March 1970 story in the Stevens Point Daily Journal tells how Gordee acquired the collection. The eggs were gathered by Frank Bollinger of Sharon, an avid bird watcher, who willed the collection to a kindergarten teacher. The teacher gave the collection to her friend, Donna Koerner of Twin Lakes, Gordee’s daughter. Eventually, Koerner gave the eggs to her father.

Bollinger collected the eggs from nests in the Sharon area, east of Beloit. Gordee estimated the eggs to be 100 years old. "Most of the eggs are intact, and only a few appear cracked or broken," the Journal article states.

The boxes containing the eggs are as remarkable as the collection itself, Marks says. At one time they contained chewing gum "guaranteed to improve a person’s hand at cards," the package states.

"The collection is unique," Marks says. "With the combination of the eggs, which can’t be legally collected any more, and these unusual boxes, it could be quite valuable."

Along with the two boxes, there is a partial list, made out by Bollinger, identifying the eggs. It lists birds such as mourning dove, robin, blue jay, grackle, blackbird, English sparrow, several kinds of swallows and others. Marks and his student assistants will attempt to further identify the eggs and their scientific names.

In the Journal article Gordee said, "Eventually, I imagine they’ll land in a museum some place." His wife, Olive, and their three daughters, Koerner, Nancy Gille, Rockford, Ill. and Hertel, intended to place the collection in a museum from the time of Bert’s death in 1993. Mrs. Gordee now lives at Riverside Suites in Stevens Point. She and her husband formerly lived at 516 W. Harding Ave.

"When the grandchildren come to visit, I will bring them to the museum to see the display," Hertel says.

The eggs will not be placed in the museum’s existing egg exhibit, Marks says. He plans an exhibit for them that will also feature a tree-full of antique song birds from the same period. Turn of the century collectors shot, stuffed and displayed songbirds in their homes as decoration, a practice which is now illegal, "Reflecting," says Marks, "the change in values since that period, as we have come to realize the limited populations of these birds."

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