Robert Jones: My name is Bob Jones and I am a professor of Art here at Truman. And I have been here since 1979.

Interviewer, Stephanie Fritz: My first question to you is: in your opinion, what is a Cabinet of Curiosities? And I see in your office, you have your own collections.

RJ: Well, my wife refers to it as an accumulation of things, not a collection. My understanding of the Cabinet of Curiosities is a collection of various items that faculty and staff around campus have or own and demonstrate things that have been popular or used in science or whatever throughout the history of this country that they’ve gathered.

SF: So what were a few of the items that you loaned to this class’s cabinet?

RJ: Well, a fleame, which is a bleeding tool used by veterinarians in the 1800s. Similar devices were also used by medical staff in the 1800s when they thought bleeding people would help take away or cure the ailment. A powder flask made from a cow’s horn, a couple of pocket watches and there was, I think it’s a candle holder, I really don’t know. It’s carved from wood in the shape of a small donkey’s foot with a donkey’s shoe attached to it.

SF: Interesting. So why did you choose some of the objects to donate? What about them made you go ‘Ooh, this would be very good for a student Cabinet of Curiosities?’

RJ: I have a tendency to have unusual things lying around my office. As you can see, an alligator head, and the artifacts and whatever. And Doctor Orel knew of my accumulation so she asked if I would be willing to share some of those things so I put them out and let the students select what they thought might be most curious.

SF: Why are these objects that you have? Have you been collecting them for years, are they things you’ve just stumbled upon?

RJ: They’re certain things; I am very involved in auctions and have been the entire time I’ve lived in Kirksville. I’m actually an auctioneer myself. There are certain things I come in contact with that play various roles in the history of this country. I find them fascinating and interesting either because the way they look, the way they are made, or the role they played in history. So I acquire them on occasions and hang on to them.

SF: So of the items you donated, do you have one that is your favorite item, in your collection or is there something in your office or at home that has a lot of personal meaning to you and enjoy?

RJ: I guess the fleame would be the closest because I collect knives and pockets knives and things like that and I guess it’s a cutlery item of sorts. Among the things I loaned, that would probably be the one I like most because it is related to my hobby.

SF: Is there anything in your office you have a special connection to?

RJ: Nothing that I have a special connection to. I have several things in here, Indian artifacts and things, I use in teaching my JINS course about hunting in America. The skulls and bones you see lying around on the floor are things I use in my drawing classes as props for the students to draw. So, nothing really that has any special meaning to me other than the two military medals that are mine from when I was in the military.

SF: Well thank you for that. Most of us are very glad you did that. Obviously in your office, you have a lot of things in cases. Is this normally how you display your items or do you have a different collection at home that is displayed a different way?

RJ: I don’t really display any of my things at home. Most of the things I do accumulate or collect are locked away in my wife’s work or in a lock box in the bank.

SF: Is there a reason for that? Do you not want to display them?

RJ: (chuckle) Well, my wife doesn’t want me to display them. You know they collect dust, those kinds of things. I never really thought about displaying them. They are just things that I like and I just put them away where they are safe.

SF: Is there anything else you’d like to say about any of your collections or specific items?

RJ: I’m trying to think of what it might possibly be. I think it is fun to buy things that are difficult to identify sometimes. You show them to people and see if they can figure out, in their own minds, what the items might have been used for. So the things I enjoy most I think are finding primitive items that were made by people, primarily in rural settings, to meet the needs of what they did on the farm or things they had to make for themselves and how they crafted these tools to help with these special needs. Those things are kind of interesting; anything from ways of shelling corn using a tin can and a nail with punch holes and creating a grating system that could take the corn off or from a contraption that looks like a small bed of nails that was used to straighten out the fibers in flax for making robes and things like that. Or hand-made presses for tobacco and various products that farmers may put together.

SF: Do you ever study social history? Or think about it? Or are these all things you’ve learned on your own?

RJ: These are things that I’ve come across on my own, but I think it’s all rooted in my relationship with my grandfather who lived in a very rural part of Arkansas in the mountain on an 80 acre farm and had to make his living from trapping animals to cracking bees to raising peanuts and those kind of things. And when I would go visit him in the summer, we would do those types of things together. And I was just fascinated by that lifestyle and how he had to work. And of course, in my eyes as a child, it was romanticized and now that I know how much he really had to work and how difficult it really was, I would never want to work that hard myself. But many of the things I pick up relate back to my memories of life on that farm and my association with my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins.

SF: That is a very touching story. Thank you very much for your time.

RJ: You are quite welcome.