The Woman Behind the World’s Only Umbrella Cover Museum

On this episode of Our American Stories, Nancy "3" Hoffman has spent her life chasing delight in the unexpected. A professional accordionist and world traveler, she built a museum that no one else in the world had thought to create: a home for umbrella covers. On Peaks Island, Maine, her collection began as a joke among friends and grew into a destination that celebrates the overlooked details of everyday life. Visitors come from across the country to laugh, browse, and rethink what it means to find meaning in small things. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
including your story. Send them to our American Stories dot com.
There's some of our favorites. And now a story about
a lady who curates a very specific kind of museum.
Nancy three Hoffman. Yes, her middle name is the numeral three,
not the word three, the numeral. She lives in Maine

(00:33):
and is the founder and curator of the world's only
umbrella cover museum. Here is Nancy's story on how she
came to open such a unique place.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Hi, I'm Nancy three Hoffman. I am the founder, director,
and curator of the world's only umbrella cover museum. Now
we're just talking about the sleeves, the sheeths that come
on umbrellas when you buy a new umbrella, because they
fascinate me. So what happens to most umbrella covers when

(01:09):
they're first purchased, that's the big question. The answer I
have found over many years of doing the Umbrella Cover
Museum is that most people don't know what to do
with them, so they put them in the closet, drop
them in the car, stick them in a pocket, lose
them and it's that particular phenomenon that they are underappreciated

(01:33):
and sort of enigmatic that fascinated me. So one day
I was cleaning out my house I found a few
umbrella covers. I looked at them and said, Hm, why
did I keep these? And what do other people do
with them? So I started asking people, and right away
they gave me their umbrella covers. Not only that, but

(01:56):
they would tell me the story. Like the first one
I collected was from an umbrella my friend Becky had.
She used to have a duck handled umbrella because she's
an Audubon bird fanatic. So she said, well, I took
this umbrella with me to NASA. I left the cover
at home, and then I forgot the duck at the

(02:16):
dock and the cover was still at home. So here
it is, you can have it. So that was the
first one I actually collected. My family gave me their
umbrella covers. I asked them for a story, so I
would put them up on my kitchen wall with a
sticky note telling me the history, the anecdote, what we say,
the provenance of the umbrella cover itself. And then one day,

(02:42):
maybe a year later, I walked into a department store
in Portland saw a display of umbrellas. There was a really,
really pretty one with flowers on it. I slipped the
cover off the umbrella, put it in my pocket and
walked out to the store. It was really the catalyst
for or the Umbrella Cover Museum, because honestly, I'm a

(03:03):
very truthful, honest person and I don't normally steal things,
but I did that day. I call it my crime
of passion, and I didn't want to keep doing that.
So the Umbrella Cover Museum is my penance. I didn't
think of it as a museum at first. I just thought, oh,
I'm collecting umbrella covers. They're kind of cute. That's kind

(03:26):
of a funny thing. So I put them on my
kitchen wall. People came to my house, they would look,
they would say, what are you doing, And it was
just I guess, I'm collecting umbrella covers at first, and
then when I had enough, I was amusing people. I
like to amuse people. They were curious about the whole
idea of collecting them. I decided to open it up

(03:48):
as a museum, and then the following year I got
interviewed by NPR ANDBBC radio. It was pretty chuffed about that,
and I thought, wow, I must really have something here.
So the collection meanwhile kept growing and growing and I

(04:09):
had to put it in my living room on my porch,
so I was kind of outgrowing the space in my house,
and eventually I was able to rent a space on
the main street of Peaks Island, so I give tours
of the Umbrella Cover Museum. There are exhibits that are
all organized. I play the theme song on my accordion,

(04:29):
so it's always been a really fun and okay, quirky
place to visit. I have a really great international exhibit.
There are now covers from seventy four different countries, so
if someone comes in from Romania, I can point to
the Romanian umbrella cover and I can also sing a
song in Romanian, which not everybody could do. The game

(04:52):
Mad for Plaid is also on the wall this year,
where you have to guess which two covers are really
from Scotland and you win a prize if you do guess.
The prizes are drink parasols. The Art and Umbrella Covers exhibit,
which has famous paintings like The Girl with a Pearl
ear Ring or The Kiss by Gustav Klint on umbrella covers.

(05:17):
There are a lot of really good umbrella cover stories.
One of my favorites is that a young woman from
Peaks Island, Eleanor, was living in Germany and she found
a black umbrella cover on the side of the road
next to the Berlin Wall, and she wrote a great

(05:37):
story about how it was a gray, grisly day by
this symbol of communism and of repression. There were two
people kissing by the side of the wall who were
ignoring the whole history, and here was this umbrella cover
that she had just found. The other thing that I

(06:02):
realized about the Umbrella Cover Museum after having it open
for a few years was that it has a deeper purpose.
The mission of the Umbrella Cover Museum is the appreciation
of the mundane in everyday life. It's also about finding
wonder and beauty in the simplest of things, and about

(06:25):
knowing that there is always a story behind the cover.
And if you keep that in mind, it's hard to
get bored. It's hard to not find some joy and
beauty in just about any activity or anything in the world.
And that's really why I keep going with it, and

(06:45):
that's really I hope what grabs people when they come
to see the Umbrella Cover Museum.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
And a great job by Chrissy and a special thanks
to Nancy three Hoffman.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
And that's the.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Number three, not the word. And if you want to
learn more about them Bbrella Covermuseum or want to donate
your umbrella covers to Nancy's collection, go to www Umbrellacovermuseum
dot org. The museum is only open in the summer.
If you're in main be sure to visit the story
of the Umbrella Coover Museum here on Our American Stories,

(07:30):
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(07:53):
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