Jeff Dunn asks:

>If there is not already, there should be museums in the homes/apartments
>of Gershwin, Copland, Barber, Bernstein, Cage, Rozsa, ...
>
>Who knows of such?  What other composers should be enshrined here?
>Probably only foreigners would visit, but what the hell, we might make
>some money off 'em!

Because my wife's parents live in Cresco, Iowa (population ca. 6000),
I've become quite familiar with the northeast corner of that state.  In
the middle of the cornfields, not terribly far from Cresco and Decorah
(home of Luther College), there is a small Czech settlement of some 400
souls called Spillville.  Antonin Dvorak and his family spent their summer
vacation there in 1893.  The building in which they stayed still stands.
The first floor houses the Bily Clock Collection, a series of elaborate
hand-carved wooden clocks made by a pair of Czech bachelor farmer brothers
in their spare time.  The second floor contains a small museum of
memorabilia relating to Dvorak's visit.  There is a Dvorak commemorative
plaque in the village, and one can also place one's fingers on the organ
keys Dvorak himself played in local Catholic church.  (The cemetery,
with its central European-style wrought-iron crosses, is worth a visit
just for the local atmosphere.)  For more information, see:
<http://www.spillville.ia.us/>.

Though I haven't yet been there, I know that there is also a Scott Joplin
house open in downtown St. Louis, MO.

Daniel Horn, Midwestern correspondent