Bolívar Museum, guardian of the history of Belén de Umbría

2023-04-30 05:46:53

An old coffee house serves as the headquarters for this particular family museum where books, ceramics, furniture, photos and indigenous pieces allow us to embark on a journey into the past.

Oscar Osorio Ospina

At this time of year, a spectacular carpet of yellow flowers adorns the entrance to the Eliseo Bolívar Museum, which houses a good part of the history of Belén de Umbría, as well as a great cultural richness.

The petals, like García Márquez’s yellow butterflies, come from an immense guayacán planted more than 50 years ago by Don Juan Antonio Gil at the entrance to the coffee farm that he began to build in 1948 together with his wife Ofelia Bolívar, daughter of Don Eliseo. a man from Antioquia who had arrived from Jericó with his brothers to settle in these lands of Risaraldo.

One of his brothers, Carlos Bolívar, a highly educated and intellectual character, was the one who began to give life to the museum that he initially established in the framework of the Plaza de Bolívar in Belén de Umbría, where it had operated since 1981.

On the outskirts of the town, on the road that leads to Mistrató, Don Juan Antonio and Doña Ofelia were in charge of a very prosperous coffee farm, whose main house grows around a square patio adorned in the center by a water fountain in stone and which is accessed by small stairs that are located at the foot of the huge guayacán with yellow flowers.

An old stone fountain stands in the center of the main patio

More than 20 years ago, the Eliseo Bolívar Museum was transferred to the house of Don Juan Antonio and Doña Ofelia, whose living rooms, dining rooms, corridors and bedrooms were conditioned to house the immense collection of books, pieces, photos, furniture and ceramics that Carlos Bolívar had accumulated over time and which was made available to the entire community as a contribution to the construction of the memory of the municipality.

Doña Consuelo Gil Bolívar guides us through the Museum’s library

The house is inhabited by Mrs. Consuelo Gil Bolívar, daughter of Mr. Juan Antonio and Mrs. Ofelia and granddaughter of Mr. Eliseo, who serves as a guide for occasional visitors to the museum, especially students, researchers and teachers interested in learning regarding this cultural richness. It is worth saying that the museum is not completely open to the public, that it is an entirely private initiative and which does not receive resources or subsidies from the State.

One of the largest rooms in the Museum houses 510 ceramic pieces from the Quimbaya culture of the Umbras, Chápatas and Guarnes tribes that inhabited these lands, as well as tools and domestic utensils carved in stone, including a sacred vessel from this culture that was used in special ceremonies.

The museum houses more than 500 ceramic pieces from the Quimbaya culture.

A little further on, a numismatic display with bills and coins of different denominations, both national and from other countries, where the oldest bill stands out: a ten-cent bill issued by the Banco del Estado de la República de Colombia in January 1893. , just 130 years ago. We also come across an interesting philatelic collection in this room.

In another room, a little smaller, is the library with an innumerable collection of books and publications, from literature to history through fiction and novels, which is complemented by a large collection of old Cromos magazines, with national circulation, and Life international circulation. And there, in a very special urn, stand out five books of notorious literary value, all of them in a very good state of preservation:

“Memoirs of Napoleon” written by the emperor himself on the island of Saint Helena where he died, published in Paris in 1825

“Don Quixote de la Mancha”, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, published in 1893 by the Garnier Hermanos Bookstore in Paris in 1893

“The Case”, a compilation of 8,000 recipes and daily facts by John Truth dating back to 1878

“History of Granada”, a book by Miguel Lafuente Alcántara published in 1878

“Selected Works” by Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch, published in Paris in 1897.

The house-museum also keeps an admirable collection of old photos of Belén de Umbría, which starts from the mosaic with all the founders of the municipality, and includes special moments such as the foundation of the cemetery, the first square, a sporting event on the site La Square, among other things. It also has a collection of special pieces, such as sewing machines, kitchen utensils, a piano, a huge cash register whose maximum capacity was $90 pesos, furniture and all sorts of objects of great historical value.

The photos collect a good part of the history of Belén de Umbría

As we said, the Bolivar Museum is not open to the general public, but to those with cultural interest or academic research purposes, such as a visitor who came from Poland several years ago to carry out research on the indigenous tribes of South America.

The irony of the case is that the Museum does appear in many international tourist guides, but it does not appear in any of the national ones, due to those ironies of life. And there, as we said at the beginning, lies a good part of the history of Belén de Umbría.

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