Discover ... the Best of Lodi, the Delta and the Mother Lode

Museum reveals Lodi's ag roots

Spenker Museum yields historical bounty

An old oak grove might seem an unlikely place for a museum. Yet the Joseph Spenker Museum feels just right, nestled amidst the handsome oaks at Jessie's Grove Winery.

Located in a tin-roofed barn, the museum features more than 50 artifacts from tractors to seeders, buggy seats to butter molds. It tells the story of what agricultural life was like in Lodi in the 19th century.

The museum, which opened its doors in late October, is the brainchild of Wanda Woock. The project, which took 18 months, was spurred by Woock's continuing desire to preserve and share the history of the ranch with others.

"I hope (visitors) will learn what it was like to live back then and how they farmed back then," Woock said.

Woock, 75, is the great granddaughter of Joseph Spenker, the patriarch and wheat farmer who settled in Lodi on the acreage that is now Jessie's Grove Winery. Spenker was the father of Jessie, who lends her namesake to the winery.

In 2005, Woock published her first book, "Jessie's Grove," which detailed life in the San Joaquin Valley from 1850 to 1950 through the Spenker family. The museum brings the pages of her book to life, giving visitors the chance to see first-hand many of the Spenkers' tools and farming equipment dating back to the late 1800s.

Tools like egg weighing scales and hay rakes, saws and wagon wheels are displayed throughout the barn, along with signs that explain their history and uses. Many items have been restored, like the post drill that was used for drilling through metal and wood. A collection of horse-powered seeders and tractors, including a dusty 1938 green John Deere tractor and the oldest piece in the museum, an 1879 Buck Eye Force Feed seeder, are positioned on a rectangular bed of stones in the center of the barn.

Even the barn itself is an artifact. It dates back to the 1870s and was built using mortise and tenon (timber joints that interlock), a style of building that was used before the hammer and nail. Woock remodeled the barn last year to reinforce some of the structure's walls and bearings ("The first remodel of the building was in 1910. The second remodel was what I did in 2005," Woock said).

So far, the museum has been attracting a following. Woock has been getting a steady flow of people on Sunday afternoons, asking questions about the ranch and its early beginnings even ones that make her chuckle.

"One of the first ladies who came here said, ‘It's interesting, but what are you going to do with all of the lichen and rust?"' said Woock, with a look of disbelief.

She answered the only way she knew how.

"I'm going to enjoy it! This wheat seeder has beautiful lichen on it," she replied.