This summer a new exhibit, From Toddler to Teenager: Growing Up on Vacation, is on display at the Geneva Historical Society. This exhibit examines family life on the Finger Lakes, and how rites of passage and rituals of growing up on the lake have changed over the past 150 years. The exhibit will be open through December 31, 2012.

For many New Yorkers, summer at the lake is an integral part of growing up. Often vacationers to the Finger Lakes first encountered the lakes as babies, watched carefully by the water and restricted to eating in a high chair. Inevitably those babies turn into young children, fastening on the life vest as they get in the sailboat. As teenagers they find the lake a great place to meet members of the opposite sex, then they return as married couples themselves, bringing the latest generation to the lake to share in family traditions. Today with families spread apart and living busy lives, the annual lake vacation is a time to reconnect family ties across generations. This exhibit explores childhood in small cottage communities, and the ways in which traditions develop and children transition into adulthood in this setting.

The exhibit is the final installment of the six-museum collaborative project, Summer in the Finger Lakes, which examines the history of summertime leisure on Canandaigua, Cayuga, Keuka, Owasco, and Seneca Lakes. The six exhibits have been rotating amongst the partner museums since their development in 2007. In addition to the Geneva Historical Society, the participating museums are: the Cayuga Museum of History and Art in Auburn; the Chemung Valley History Museum in Elmira; The History Center in Tompkins County in Ithaca; the Ontario County Historical Society in Canandaigua; and the Yates County Genealogical and Historical Society in Penn Yan.
 
The planning and implementation of this project were made possible by: Institute of Museum and Library Services; National Endowment for the Humanities; New York State Council on the Arts, Museum and Folk Arts Programs; and New York Council for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this project do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information about this exhibit or the project, call the Geneva Historical Society at 315-789-5151.

The Geneva History Museum is located in the Prouty-Chew House at 543 South Main Street and summer hours are Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturday (and Sundays in July and August) 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. Admission is free. Parking is on the street or in the Trinity Episcopal Church lot across the street.