Our Curator
Peggy Debien
My name is Peggy Debien (sometimes known by my legal name Margaret). A native of Port Clinton and an alumna of Immaculate Conception School (1961), I graduated from Port Clinton High School (1965).
After earning my degree from BGSU, I taught high school English for one year before being commissioned as a naval officer. I served for 24 years, travelling the world and enjoying a non-traditional career for a women.
Returning to Port Clinton I worked at the Hayes Presidential Library and Museums, the Chef’s Garden, and the Culinary Vegetable Institute before joining the Ottawa County Museum as curator in 2008.
During my time as curator I have met many new friends, renewed old friendships, and learned so much more about our county history than I ever knew existed.
We're fortunate to have a county rich in history, including Native American settlements, the Battle of Lake Erie (which forever changed the shape and the history of our country), the clearing of the Great Black Swamp, the military history of our servicemen and women and the importance of Camp Perry, and the many local industries our people founded to help settle the county and raise their families. The stories of human endeavor and our heritage are endlessly fascinating and make this museum so very interesting.
We welcome visitors to enjoy our collections and also to tell us their stories of county history. Virtually all of our holdings have been donated by current or former Ottawa Countians. We are a source of research materials from manuscripts, early newspapers to digital collections of photographs, and we love to assist anyone in their research. Our volunteers enjoy the opportunity to share whatever we have and to collect donated artifacts to display to future visitors.
We hope you will come in, call us, or peruse this website to see what we have to offer. I am always willing to come in after our regular open hours to meet with you, talk about our history, and show you around.
Please feel welcome at YOUR county museum.
Sincerely,
Our Assistant Curator
Kaitlin Phillips
Kaitlin Phillips is originally from Miami, FL, and has recently moved to Ohio. She earned a Masters degree in Museum Studies from Marist University in Florence, Italy.
Shortly afterwards, she served a curatorial internship setting up exhibits and writing grants for the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. Her first career position was at The Mark Twain House Museum in Hartford, CT, where she worked in the development department. She also worked at the Museum Association of New York.
In her free time, she enjoys writing and drawing, and last year she completed her first full marathon!
Kaitlin is in charge of our Facebook page, in particular encouraging reader participation in identifying some of our more obscure artifacts and photos.