The Bill Monroe Museum is a project of the Monroe Brothers Foundation to show the life of Bill Monroe and the early foundations of bluegrass music. The museum is in the house in Rosine, Kentucky, where Monroe grew up.
After Bill Monroe's death in 1996, bluegrass fan Dr. Campbell Mercer formed the foundation, dedicated to promoting and preserving the music, life and legacy of Bill Monroe and his brothers Birch and Charlie. Few forms of music can be traced to such a clear beginning as bluegrass, and so Mercer and the foundation planned to buy the 376-hectare (930-acre) Monroe family farm, known as Jerusalem Ridge, and build a museum and amphitheater in Rosine where bluegrass music can be played during annual spring and fall festivals.
Beginning in 2001, they restored the five-room wooden home to its 1917 appearance and filled it with Monroe family heirlooms and mementos. In the same year, they began the annual Jerusalem Ridge Bluegrass Celebration and Festival. The foundation plans to restore the entire Monroe farm, including the barn, fields, and Uncle Pen's cabin. They plan also a living history tour of the path the brothers took to their Uncle Pen's home as they met to go play square dances, allowing bluegrass pilgrims to retrace those steps through the woods.
Famous quotes containing the words bill, monroe and/or museum:
“The first year was critical to my assessment of myself as a person. It forced me to realize that, like being married, having children is not an end in itself. You don’t at last arrive at being a parent and suddenly feel satisfied and joyful. It is a constantly reopening adventure.”
—Anonymous Mother. From the Boston Women’s Health Book Collection. Quoted in The Joys of Having a Child, by Bill and Gloria Adler (1993)
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“Things will not mourn you, people will.”
—Hawaiian saying no. 191, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)