One Freezer-Full of Dresses at a Time
Once a week, on Thursdays, Curator Elizabeth Lay unpacks and repacks a deep freezer in the little brick Cape Cod at the edge of the Montgomery County Historical Society campus in Rockville. But what's inside might be surprising: it's clothing. Lay, who operates the historical society's textile conservation laboratory, has been going through a process to freeze away the carpet beetles that find themselves attracted to the dusters, wedding gowns and flapper dresses of Montgomery County's historical movers-and-shakers. “It's my favorite day of the week,” Lay said of the unpacking and repacking ritual. The historical society has recently opened up Lay's work to the public, offering appointments to watch her work on Thursdays. “Not every box has the beetles,” Lay said, but she's still methodically going through the society's entire collection to get rid of the visitors once and for all. There are about 10,000 objects in the historical society'...