Chamber buggy moves to museum
By Maureen Robertson
Guy B. Woodward Museum is now home to the old-fashioned buggy that sat outside the Ramona Chamber of Commerce office for the past six years.
Former Ramona Sentinel owner Keith Hansen and his wife, former chamber director Tricia Hansen, purchased the buggy and donated it to the chamber after then chamber executive director, the late Nelson “Mac” MacWilliams, spotted it for sale, Keith Hansen said last Friday. When Hansen and his wife, now Minnesota residents, learned what the buggy’s price was, they decided to buy it and donate it to the chamber, he said.
The decision to move the buggy from the chamber office at 960 Main St. to the museum at 645 Main St. came after it was vandalized three times in two weeks.
“After the buggy was found turned upside it was decided that the buggy should go to the museum where it could be repaired and protected from further damage,” said Judy Nachazel, president of the Ramona Pioneer Historical Society that owns and operates the museum, which is gated.
“That’s good,” said Hansen, when he learned of the decision. “At least it will be preserved.”
Juan Salas, owner of Ramona Towing and Auto Dismantling, volunteered to tow the buggy to the museum and he moved it on Tuesday, Jan. 1.
“No one every touched it until the last two weeks,” said Holly Romo in the chamber office. “All those years nobody every touched it” — except for the year someone moved a stuffed Santa from its perch in the buggy to a gas station. Then the person or persons moved Santa to other Main Street businesses before returning it to the chamber.
“Santa was visiting Ramona that year,” Romo said. “We’d get anonymous emails telling us where it was going to be next.”
Before Christmas that year, Santa was back in the buggy.
At its location in the front yard next to the chamber office, the buggy’s been decorated for the different seasons and occasions with everything from flags to Christmas lights.
When the buggy is refurbished, it will become part of the museum’s permanent buggy collection, said Nachazel, noting three buggies are now displayed at the museum.
Guy B. Woodward Museum is open Thursdays and Fridays from 1 to 3 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. and by appointment. For more information, call 760-789-7644.