Roughly three years of work came to fruition on Saturday with the opening of a new community museum in Stockholm. The Stockholm Community Museum opened its gates to the public with a full day of free programming. “Stockholm is known for its community, for helping, and putting on a good party,” said Beverly Szumutku, one of the museum’s board members. On Saturday, the museum’s grounds were bustling with hundreds of people from all walks of life, which would have been unimaginable only a hundred years ago. The story of Stockholm is a story of tolerance and peaceful co-existence. The village is roughly 75 kilometres south of Yorkton. The area was settled predominantly by Swedish immigrants in the 1880s, followed by an influx of Hungarians. “As the Hungarians came across from Europe, they seem to have settled in Esterhazy,” Delvin Szumutku, chairman of the museum board, explained to CTV News. “Then the overflow came into Stockholm. Hungarians became the north, and the Swedish community became the south.” He said it took years, and a love affair between a Swedish and Hungarian resident, for the two communities to truly come together. Today, there are still some people who have preserved their heritage, but the Swedish and Hungarian languages are mostly lost to time. “There’s still the odd person that speaks those languages. I still speak a little bit [of Hungarian], but not very well,” Szumutku joked. Slowly losing their heritage is what prompted the board to come together and make the museum happen. “We wanted to make sure that [history] stays alive,” board member Beverly Szumutku said. “If we didn’t start it, it wasn’t going to happen.” One of the biggest bumps on the road leading to Saturday’s grand opening was convincing the community to help. “The reeve of our RM told me today that when I first came to the RM talking about this, they thought it would never work,” Delvin said. Regardless of the reactions, the group persevered, just like their ancestors. “It came together once we got the building ready,” he said. The brick building was in rough shape, but Szumutku and the rest of the board raised enough money to fix it up well enough to house a museum. The exhibition is currently limited to one room, with a second floor available for expansion in the future. “I don’t want to talk about expansion just yet because we’re just opening,” said board member Mike Schwizer with the widest of grins. “I hope to see [the museum] flourish. We’re adding more and more items all the time.” None of the board members CTV News spoke with were able to give an exact number of artifacts, but they all agreed there are hundreds of items. “They all donated it to us ... and fast!” Beverly Szumutku said. “Once word got out that we were putting this together, people wanted their life to live on, and it does live on.” She said she loves every item in the museum, as they are all unique. “I think the most intriguing thing for me is that we have a veteran who was in the Nuremberg trials,” she explained. “We have a picture of him sitting there being in the trials.” Visitors who wanted to explore the village’s history inside the museum building didn’t have an easy time, as they had to squeeze through dozens of other visitors just to get a glimpse. The exhibition area was busy with children who were participating in the Amazing Race Stockholm — exploring various display cases for a chance to be named the winner. It was just one of the activities offered to the public on Saturday. “We’ve got music that started at 2 p.m. and will go all the way until midnight. We have popcorn, we have sodas, we have face painting, a classic car show. We’re having a supper tonight,” Delvin Szumutku listed. “All of that is free of charge.” He said they wanted to make sure everyone could partake in the celebration. “We want to give back. When there’s a family of three little children and two adults ... it’s hard to afford a supper,” he said. A local man donated meat for the event on the condition that it would be offered free to anyone who wanted some. “[It’s] pork loin on a bun. We’re going to feed approximately 350 people,” Szumutku added. The event exceeded the organizer’s expectations — first by bringing helping hands together. “People just dived in. We had people dive in and just cut grass and sweep and get [the grounds] ready for the beer garden like they just wanted to help,” Beverly said. For Delvin, the turnout was the biggest surprise. “I went to bed last night hoping we get more than 20 people. And here we are ... Everybody is here. Everybody’s having a great time. The weather is perfect,” he said.
