Heights brakes for history
Fourteen-year-old runs World War II museum in his family’s driveway
Jake Cosgrove, 14, may be Houston’s most unlikely museum boss.
His Mini World War II Museum opened early this summer in his family’s driveway. Dedicated to “educating minds and building character for life,” it quickly became a must-stop for Heights residents strolling the neighborhood.
By midmorning one recent museum day, visitors jammed the display table shoulder to shoulder as Cosgrove, a slight young man with glasses, delivered a college-level discourse on the artifacts.
“I don’t make long boring speeches,” Cosgrove said. “But my message is: Don’t let this history repeat itself.”
His exhibit includes bayonets, uniforms, a field radio, Nazi paper dolls, photos taken by American and German troops and the discharge papers awarded his maternal great-grandfather, Navy reservist Victor Ravel, as the war drew to a close. Among the rarest items is an ashtray featuring German military insignia that was fashioned from a 1940-vintage bullet, a fragment of a 1938 artillery shell and — as a cigarette brace — a bent 1938 French coin. Such “trench art” was crafted by soldiers on both sides to while away the hours.
The most poignant artifact, arguably, is a snapshot of a German soldier, apparently at leisure, on a horse; the most problematic, a swastikabearing automobile flag, which Cosgrove shows only upon request. Acknowledging that some visitors might recoil from the hateful emblem, he nonetheless asserted, “You can’t erase history.”
Cosgrove’s one-man driveway exhibit is the latest example of the venerable Houston tradition of idiosyncratic museums; others in town celebrate everything from oranges to funerals to telephones.
Within weeks of its opening, the teen’s museum at 223 E. 12th was the talk of the neighborhood. Typically, it’s open every other Saturday; hours this Saturday will be 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.
As the museum’s neighborhood fame grew, the
exhibits traveled. On multiple occasions, the youth was invited to set up a his collection at Manready Mercantile, a Heights clothing and antiques merchant.
“It was neat to see a young person with such knowledge and care for vintage things,” sales associate Abbie McKenzie said. “He’s a really cool kid. Any time he’s ready to set up down here, we’re ready for him.”
Cosgrove’s collection has grown through donations from neighbors, who, inspired by the teen’s enthusiasm, probed attics for war relics. Other items have come from area antique stores and from World War II military vets, with whom Cosgrove corresponds via the Internet.
The teen said that meeting a score of WW II veterans at a Washington, D.C.-area airport was a “life-changing event.”
Among them was Richard Grove, 89, a former Navy aviation bombardier who lives in Florida. “This young fellow comes up and says, ‘Thank you for your service,’ ” said Grove, who had come to the nation’s capital for a gathering of veterans. “It didn’t take long before this unusual young man expressed his high level of interest in World War II . ... I was extremely impressed.”
Grove gave the museum a photo of his old warplane and a replica of his naval wings pin.
Airports have not always been so delightful. Once, when Cosgrove had packed a bullet-studded “trench art” ashtray in his carry-on luggage, an airport screening device detected gunpowder residue. Security officers took a dim view of his acquisition.
The museum, which will continue its run through the school year provided that Cosgrove maintains his grades, simply grew out of the teen’s “desire to share his collection, one on one,” his mother, Yvonne Cosgrove, said.
His father, John Cosgrove, said, “He wakes up on Saturdays and says, ‘It’s museum day!’ ”