When Gabrielle Stanhope stepped off the elevator to her new office associate job at the Maine State Museum in 1986, the sounds and sights that greeted her were much different than today’s. Clicking typewriters, clacking adding machines, whirring rotary dial phones, and stacks of carbon paper in desk drawers shaped those early years of her career.

Computers, email communication, and ever-evolving procedures have brought great change to office administrative work since that time. A hallmark of Gabrielle’s tenure at the museum has been patience with those changes, a willingness to adapt, good cheer, great competence, and a keen commitment to all forms of the museum’s work.

In addition to her regular duties, Gabrielle capably pitched in where she was needed. She did stints at the Museum Store; helped launch the Friends of the Maine State Museum membership program; filled in at the museum’s front desk; and assisted with exhibit openings and special events.

Gabrielle has also been the longest-serving secretary to the Maine State Museum Commission, riding herd on 60 governor-appointed Commission members over 30 years, organizing and attending meetings, and taking minutes.

A native of Sidney, Maine, Gabrielle was a young mother when she started with the museum. She had already worked eight years for state government at that time. Now, 37 years later, she is a young grandmother and continues to live, garden, and stay involved in the Sidney community.

Thank you, Gabrielle, for a job very well done and for your long devotion to the Maine State Museum, Museum Commission, staff and volunteers, museum visitors, and the people of Maine!