The Museum Above Grandpa’s Garage: Ira Cooperrider’s Legacy and My Lifelong Learning

Thornville, Ohio, USA - Mid 1950s until ....

Long before I stood in front of classrooms in a wide variety of places, one of my first ‘informal’ classrooms was tucked above a garage on High Point Road, just outside of Thornville, Ohio. It wasn’t a formal space—no chalkboards, no desks—but it was a personal collection curated with a reverence for learning that shaped me more deeply than any syllabus ever could. It belonged to my great-grandfather, Ira Franklin Cooperrider, a man whose quiet passion for collecting and cataloging artefacts transformed his home and small farm into a living museum.

Grandpa Cooperrider wasn’t a professional archaeologist or botanist; in fact, he wasn’t even college educated, but he was something rarer: a man of boundless curiosity and a steward of pre-history/history. His varied collections—of Native American artefacts, of coins and botanical specimens, and of curiosities from the Ohio countryside—were meticulously labeled and lovingly displayed. He built cabinets, mounted boards, and even planted a garden where each tree bore a hand-lettered sign. His museum wasn’t just for show; it was a place of inquiry, wonder, and his storytelling.

As a boy, I wandered that space with wide eyes and eager fingers, absorbing the textures of flint, inspecting the patina of old and foreign coins, and exploring the nature of objects that had outlived their makers.

Inside the house, those coins waited for curious hands. I remember sitting beside Grandpa, just the two of us, sorting through them, tracing their origins, imagining the journeys they’d taken. Grandpa also had a small but focused collection of books —- on butterflies, reptiles, trees, and the mysteries of the natural world. He was always happy to share, a quiet teacher, never instructing, always inviting.

It was the museum up rickety stairs above his standalone garage though that gave Grandpa Cooperrider some renown. It was that museum that introduced me and others who were invited to unknown worlds, and it showed us that culture and history weren’t just subjects you read about—they were something you could touch, question, and pass on.

Alongside the arrowheads, stone tools, and ceremonial fragments there were also remnants of early America’s farm life, from household goods like ceramic crockery and candle moulds to handmade toys, 19th century photographs and an extensive collection of firearms — each piece carefully laid out and categories thoughtfully arranged, all a testament to the lives that had shaped central Ohio before us. Grandpa Cooperrider didn’t collect for prestige—he collected to preserve, to understand, to honor.

One of the display sheets from that magnificent collection (said to number 3000 arrowheads alone), is shown here in a photo, and it illustrates these lessons up close and personal. It’s a simple board wired with stone artefacts — arrowheads and gorget fragments — arranged by my grandpa with great care. Besides the range of pieces what catches an observer’s eye is a faint pencil mark around one particular arrowhead. That circle, I believe, was made to honor a small but meaningful moment: the discovery of an arrowhead by Ira’s daughter, my grandmother Carrie Elizabeth Cooperrider Blackstone — or Katie — when she was young, sometime in the 1920s or ’30s.

Grandma Blackstone would have been a girl then, wandering the fields near their home in the tiny community of Bruno Grange, her eyes trained on the ground the way Ira had instructed her (and then taught us great-grandkids 40 years later). Her find wasn’t just added to the collection—it was celebrated, circled, preserved. That gesture speaks volumes about Grandpa Cooperrider’s style: every object had a story, and every story mattered.

For me, that circled arrowhead is more than a relic. It’s a thread connecting multiple generations

—a child’s curiosity, a father’s pride, and a great-grandson’s lifelong pursuit of meaning through objects. It reminds me that collecting isn’t just about possession; it’s about making these connections. It’s about honoring the hands that came before us and the stories that get passed on.

Ira Cooperrider’s museum above the garage may be gone, but its spirit lives on—in my own humble collection, in the essays I write to commemorate my own learning and discoveries, and in the way I still pause over a weathered stone wondering what it might be and who held it first. 

Two ancient hammers from the Ira Cooperrider collection.

Some of my own finds from over the years.

Ganesha from the Market: A Journey Remembered

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — 1986

This is a small brass statuette of the Hindu god Ganesha that I acquired at Kuala Kumpur’s Petaling Street (Chinatown) market sometime in 1986. Seated in repose, his head tilted in gentle wisdom, the elephant god holds the tools of spiritual navigation: a goad to urge us forward, a noose for us to gather stray thoughts, a sweet modaka dumpling representing the rewards of our spiritual effort, and a raised hand offering us protection. At his feet, a mouse waits patiently, reminding us that even the smallest being can be a support vehicle of grace.

I have to admit that when I first found this figurine, I knew little about the god or the Hindu religion. I was living in the Kuala Lumpur (KL) suburb of Petaling Jaya at the time, not far from the busy street Jalan SS2/24, where I had boarded a public bus, one of those rectangular shaped diesal-scented rides that rattled through the neighborhoods with a rhythm all its own. The route wound its way toward central Kuala Lumpur, past the old shophouses and walled-off bungalows and eventually along the Universiti Malaya campus, until I stepped off near Chinatown. Once into the Petaling Street area, among the bustle and clatter of vendors and shoppers, I wandered past tables of shoes, knock off designer watches, VHS tapes and everything else under the sun and into a covered sidewalk area where a couple small time hawkers laid out their wares on blankets. This is where the Nepali traders could regularly be found, some also offering watches but one guy in particular who had devotional items from both the Buddhist and Hindu traditions, including statues of various deities, ornately carved wooden incense holders, and other paraphernalia.

It was on the edge of this fellow’s blanket that I found the tiny figurine of the god known by hundreds of millions as the Lord of Wisdom, Patron of the Arts and Literature and Destroyer of Obstacles.

The story of how Ganesha got an elephant’s head is simple: Prince Ganesha received his elephant head after the god Shiva, unaware that Ganesha was his son, beheaded him in a moment of fury and later replaced it with the head of the first creature he found—an elephant. The elephant head symbolizes wisdom, strength, and the ability to overcome obstacles with grace and intelligence.

I don’t remember the vendor’s face at all —just the pull I felt toward the figure. He didn’t press the sale. The Ganesha lay quietly among other items. I picked it up, felt its light weight in my palm, and knew it would come home with me.

Symbolism and Significance

Etched into the back of the statue are what I have been told are Khmer-influenced Thai yantra characters NaMoPhutYa, นะโมพุทธายะ, a mantra invoking Buddha (rather than Ganesha!) as a protector, wise sage and spiritual guide. It’s a call to begin, to trust, to clear the path ahead. That’s been a mantra I’ve followed for many years, I guess ever since I left my hometown of Thornville, Ohio, over 50 years ago.

According to what I’ve read, each element of the Ganesha statuette carries meaning:

• Elephant head: Wisdom, discernment, and deep listening

• Four arms: Divine reach and multidimensional action

• Goad and noose: Tools to guide and gather the mind

• Modaka (the sweet dumpling): Joy earned through spiritual effort

• Abhaya mudra: Gesture of protection and reassurance

• Mouse companion: Humility and subtlety as spiritual vehicles

• Seated posture: Balance between repose and readiness

I've also been told that the rounded backdrop behind Ganesha may echo the Buddhist prabhamandala, a halo of enlightenment.

It frames Ganesha as a spiritual guide seated within a sacred place. The merging of both Hindu and Buddhist elements is clear in this tiny amulet.

I've read that the usual mantra spoken with Ganesha is ॐ गं गणपतये नमः (Om Gam Ganapataye Namah), invoking his blessings. It’s traditionally recited at the start of journeys, rituals, or creative acts. It suggests that such a representation is meant not just for decoration, but for devotion—perhaps placed on a home altar, carried during travel, or gifted to mark a new chapter in someone’s life.

And for me, it began on that humid trip to a KL market in 1986.

Since then, this Ganesha has traveled far—from Malaysia to Japan, back to Malaysia, then to Singapore, and now the Philippines. He’s watched over my academic office work, sat quietly on bookshelves, seen me go through the ups and down of multiple personal and professional relationships, and he now rests among other artifacts in my collection. But he’s more than brass and mantra. He’s a reminder of my wanderings in the markets and other social spaces of Asia, of learning about Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Shintoism and other belief systems over the years, and of being inspired to learn more. (Coming from a Christian family of the Protestant tradition, I felt I knew quite a bit about that, and still in the university I took a course entitled The Bible as Literature that gave me an even deeper perspective.)

Reflection

We don’t always know when a meaningful talisman enters our life. Sometimes it’s not the object that’s sacred, but the moment it marks. A bus ride, a bike ride, a memorable day, a quiet pull toward something that feels familiar before we understand why.

This Ganesha didn’t come with some long sales pitch. He came with a story that I had to learn. And over time, as I learned more about Hinduism in general and Ganesha in specific, the figurine became layered with meaning and memory. He reminds me that the first step toward understanding doesn’t always loudly announce itself. Sometimes, it waits patiently, quietly on a hawker’s blanket, ready to be found. 

 

This slightly larger, more colourful statue of Ganesh was acquired in a shop in Little India, Singapore.

🇵🇹 One Man’s Rubble is Another’s Treasure: Discovering a Cornice Fragment (or Volute) in Rural Portugal

 

Castelo Branco, Portugal, 1982

It was the summer of 1982, and I was hiking a quiet rural road somewhere outside Castelo Branco in the Beira Baixa region of eastern Portugal, close to Spain. I was with a Portuguese friend who was well informed of the area’s rich cultural tradition, one stretching back beyond the reach of recorded history. Our path for the day was well marked, winding over mellow hills and along low stone walls that crumbled in places. We weren’t looking for anything in particular—just walking, talking, letting the landscape speak.

Then we saw it: a pile of rubble on the roadside, likely the remains of a collapsed wall or refuse collected from a forgotten structure. Amid the broken stones, one piece caught my eye. It had a distinct spiral pattern, almost fossil-like in its curve. I bent down, lifted it, and turned it in my hands. The swirl reminded me of ammonites I’d seen in books—and I said as much to my friend.

But as we studied the stone more closely, something shifted. The spiral wasn’t organic—it was deliberate. Carved. The texture wasn’t sedimentary, but architectural. We began to wonder: could this be a fragment of a column? A piece of an ancient building?

As you can see from the photos the fragment is no more than a handspan across. It's carved in granite, the spiral curve softened by centuries of wind and rain. Even today I remember how the moment we discovered the piece actually felt quiet, almost ceremonial—as if it had been waiting to be noticed.

What we had found was a ‘volute,' which is the spiral scroll that often adorns the top of classical columns. From what I’ve read, in architectural terms, the swirl is part of ‘the capital,’ the decorative element that crowns a column and transitions to the structure above it. More specifically, the fragment likely came from a cornice, the projecting ledge that runs along the top edge of a wall or column, often carved in Roman, Baroque or later styles. The volute would have curled outward, catching light and shadow, adding definition to the façade.

The stone itself is rough and speckled, maybe even quarried not far from where we stood that day. Its surface bore various marks of time, including some discolouration and a break that suggested it had been torn from its original place by collapse or neglect. Yet even in its brokenness, the piece conveyed a message: This old thing has meaning.

What surprises me today is how a single ‘artifact’ evokes centuries of cultural layering. As any Portuguese person will tell you, their country's architectural tradition stretches back through the Roman occupation, and even earlier, to pre-Roman Iberian tribes who built with stone. In Évora, far to the south from Beira Baixa, Roman columns still stand, weathered but proud. In Estremoz, also to the south, marble palaces whisper of Moorish and medieval grandeur. Closer to Castelo Branco, below the tiny castle town of Marvao, a Roman bridge still stands.

In the photos here, you’ll see the stone fragment cradled in my hands: a rough, irregularly shaped piece of granite, with shades of gray, white, and black, its texture is coarse, elemental. The spiral is subtle but unmistakable—an elegant curve emerging from the stone’s rugged surface.

Castelo Branco was once Constantia, a Roman outpost on the edge of empire. The hills here still carry the imprint of Roman construction, their stones repurposed in chapels and manors across the centuries. This volute may well have begun its life in a Roman civic building, or perhaps in a bathhouse or temple, with its spiral echoing the order and symmetry of classical design.

Or perhaps the piece was lifted from an earlier ruin and set into a later edifice, like a medieval chapel. In Beira Baixa, history doesn’t layer—it weaves. Roman, Romanesque, Baroque—all coexist in the architecture, each style borrowing from the last, adapting to the terrain and the times.

I’ve carried this fragment of a classical stone column around the world, and it reminds me that sometimes the most interesting discoveries aren’t made in museums or archives, they aren’t preplanned or vetted by research committees —but they can happen anywhere, even on forgotten roads, beside a friend, in the company of curiosity.

Here's a photo I took of the Roman Bridge in the shadow of Marvāo, a castle town not far from Castelo Branco.

A Vase from Prapat (Sumatra), Indonesia: Travel, Trade, and Mystery

Lake Toba, Sumatra – 1988

In December 1988, after traveling by overland taxi on my way from the city of Medan in North Sumatra to Samosir Island in the highlands three hours south, I found myself in the small lakeside town of Prapat, perched on the edge of the vast and ancient Lake Toba. The small town was quiet, misty, and rather nondescript, though the region was steeped in Batak culture. It was an ideal place for slow wandering and unexpected discoveries.

Looking for a drink, I stepped into a modest wooden sundry shop with a tile floor, not expecting much beyond snacks and trinkets. But as I poked my nose into a room adjacent to the main sales space, I saw tucked onto a high shelf what looked like a jade-coloured ceramic vase positioned between old cans and other garage items. It caught my eye for two reasons. The first was that it seemed aged and unmistakably Chinese. What threw me a bit was that its top appeared to be partially covered in motor oil. When I took hold of the vase and inspected it, I confirmed my impression on both fronts: The lip of the vase had a layer of oil on it, and the rest was dusty and unkempt. Still, I recognized what seemed like a celadon glaze, and there was an unmistakable dragon design under the dust.

I still remember that the young shopkeeper seemed surprised I had an interest in the ‘container,’ and he sold it to me for rupiah that put it in the 10$ range, a veritable steal no matter what the vase's value.

Of course, I wasn’t just intrigued by the piece’s design and possible provenance but also by how such a vase had ended up in the highlands, far from any port or the hands of a calculating antique dealer.

Only later did I learn that such vessels had been highly prized for centuries by the Toba Batak people, who adapted imported ceramics into ritual vessels known as ‘perminangken.’ These sorts of containers were used by the Batak bomoh or datu — ritualistic shaman — to hold magical substances (including bits of human remains), allowing them to communicate with ancestral spirits (Zainuddin, 2012).

The island of Sumatra is one of the largest of Indonesia’s 13,000 islands. It lies directly adjacent to the Melakan Straits, a busy trade route that has been plied by ships sailing between China, Southeast Asia, India and the Arabian peninsula for eons.

The Batak people, many of whom had been converted to Christianity by a German Lutheran missionary in the 19th century when the Dutch were the colonial masters in Sumatra, had long participated in maritime trade networks that brought ceramics from China, Vietnam, and Thailand deep into the Sumatran interior. (I had even celebrated Christmas eve of 1989 in a Batak church in a tiny village on Samosir.)

Possible Age and Origins of the Vase

Once I had the vase back to my home in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I learned something about it.

Chinese porcelain vases from the imperial periods were often exported across Southeast Asia via the maritime trade routes, including those connected to the Dutch East India Company and via the Manila Galleon trade.

The piece I’d acquired might have traced its lineage to the late Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) or even earlier, possibly the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), when porcelain production reached its artistic zenith. This information has been confirmed in my later investigations (Canepa, 2020; Savage, 2023). My speculation rested on the quality of the crackle celadon and the other artistry apparent in the piece.

An alternative point of origin could have been the kilns of Chiang Mai, Thailand, or Vietnam, where 20th century entrepreneurs had tapped local craftsmen to satisfy the commercial demands of the growing tourist trade.

For the novice collector hoping for a big find, it was also the vase’s style — featuring an underglaze of light, jade-like green — as well as the worn base showing age and the raised dragon motif that suggested the work could have originated from Jingdezhen, the famed imperial Chinese kiln city. My recent reading also had suggested that such vessels were not just sold in Southeast Asia as decoration; they were symbols of prosperity, protection, and spiritual resonance, often gifted or traded as diplomatic offerings (Savage, 2023).

Some Chinese vases were repurposed locally, fitted by tribespeople with carved wooden stoppers and adapted into ritual use, or as in this one’s case, given a more utilitarian role, like serving as a motor oil container. In more urban areas like Medan or Penang, most vases would have been cherished as heirlooms, and when falling out of favour, they would have been sold to a local merchant who then could have turned them over for a profit to collectors or tourists. For me, finding an elegant Chinese ceramic deep in the rural Sumatran highlands was an unexpected part of my Toba adventure, adding to the mystique of the journey.

Whatever the story might be, now decades later, as this vase sits quietly on a shelf in our Bohol home, I’m reminded of finding it on that misty morning in Prapat.

A final thought: This vase is more than an object—it’s a thread in a long tapestry of memory, trade, and mystery. And like many things I have collected in my travels, it continues to reveal itself over the short time it’s in my possession, endearingly and with grace.

References

Canepa, T. (2020). Chinese porcelain: Late Ming (1366–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties. In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology (pp. 2323–2326). Springer. https://link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/978-3-030-30018-0_1336

Savage, G. (2023). Pottery – Qing Dynasty, Ceramics, Porcelain. Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/.../Qing-dynasty-1644-1911-12

Zainuddin, A. (2012). Batak ritual vessels and the adaptation of foreign ceramics. Journal of Southeast Asian Anthropology, 18(2), 45–62.sian Anthropology, 18(2), 45–62.

The Handira Wedding Blanket

 Tangier, Morocco – 1980

In August of 1980, I took a break from my freelance English teaching gigs in Lisbon, Portugal, and traveled to Morocco with an old friend from Columbus, Ohio. After taking a boat from Algeciras, Spain, to Tangier, we stayed in the northwest African country for several weeks. Much of our journey was travelling from Tangier to Fez and back by train, which was an adventure on multiple levels, but it was in the bazaar of Tangier that I found this traditional Berber wedding carpet, known as a Handira.

The story of its acquisition goes like this: The first day we were back in Tangier, we wandered the labyrinthine alleys of the old medina, resisting the pull of tourist trinkets and mass-produced rugs. I wasn’t looking to buy anything—I hadn’t even brought money for serious purchases. But as travel often teaches, the most meaningful exchanges aren’t planned.

Looking for some reprieve from the day’s heat, we stumbled upon invitation into a carpet shop tucked behind the bazaar’s bustle. The youngish owner, sensing our thirst and curiosity, invited us upstairs to a second-floor gallery where, he claimed, some of his shop’s more precious hand-woven pieces were kept. We climbed the narrow stairs and emerged into a wide open room with a large veranda overlooking the public square—a quiet pocket above the chaos. Mint tea was served in small glasses, and the afternoon light filtered through the arches as he began to unfurl one textile after another.

Among them was this—a long, shimmering Berber wedding blanket, known as a Handira. Roughly 5’6” wide and 9’4” long, it was unlike anything I’d seen. Woven in wool with exquisite geometric bands of rectangles, diamonds and zigzags, it bore braided fringes and scattered silk strands, some punctuated with sequins that reflected light as if they were stars.

The owner explained the kilim had been made for a bride from an aristocratic family in the Middle Atlas Mountains. The silk tufts and metallic accents weren’t just decorative—they were blessings, woven into the fabric to protect and honor the bride as she journeyed to her new family and home.

I didn’t have the cash to buy such a piece, but I did have my Nikon F2 camera, a trusted companion on many travels. After some back-and-forth, we agreed: the camera and $200 USD in exchange for the Handira. It felt like a fair trade—not just of goods, but of stories. I left Morocco that trip with no camera, but I left with a piece of living history folded under my arm.

Now, 45 years later, after a life of travel and collecting, this Handira hangs in the master bedroom in Bohol. It’s more than a textile—it’s a memory of mint tea and sunlit arches, of a quiet moment above the bazaar, and of the serendipity that sometimes finds you when you’re not looking.

And this photo may be the last one I took with the Nikon F2 that I traded for the Handira blanket.