Stengel-True Museum Endowment Fund

The Stengel-True Museum Endowment Fund was established in 2005 by Marion Community Foundation itself. In appreciation of the cooperative arrangement between the Foundation and the Museum (The Museum has been home to Marion Community Foundation’s offices since 2004.), and to further demonstrate its support, the Foundation’s Board created this fund with a grant from its own Founders’ Fund. The Stengel-True Fund, in turn, makes grants to support museum operations.

The Stengel-True Museum, built in 1864, is located at 504 S, State St. in Marion. The former home of Judge Ozias Bowen, it is an elegant memorial to the Victorian splendor of the Civil War Era. The home passed through family to Henry A. True, a Marion banker and Bowen’s grandson. In his will, he created the Stengel-True Museum in order that it might be preserved, along with the collections of Dr. Frederick A. Stengel, optometrist, jeweler, hobbyist, and antique collector. Stengel’s lifetime of collecting provides a priceless record of early life in Marion, Ohio. True’s own home, built at the corner of State and Church streets in 1848, is also a Marion museum and, like the Stengel-True, is representative of the architecture of the period.