In most small towns, public gatherings are the fabric of the community, but it's the fixtures and hidden treasurers that make those places special.

Towns in rural areas often have Grange halls, which serve as meeting places for farmers and their families who are members of the local Grange, a fraternity of families seeking economic and social order.

Moravia, at the southern tip of Owasco Lake, is one such village that had a special find.

Grange No. 952, located on Moravia's main thoroughfare, was for years a center of social activity.

The building was sold about two years ago.

As workers cleaned out the building, members of the Cayuga-Owasco Lakes Historical Society found an old theater curtain that dates back to the vaudeville era.

Now the curtain is getting a new life.

West Lake Conservators, a Mottville business dedicated to the restoration of antique paintings, textiles and photographs, recently completed work on the roughly 70-year-old curtain, which was badly in need of refurbishment.

“These are called historic painted theater curtains,” West Lake Conservators CEO Susan Blakney said.

“Every small town in America used to have a stage. ... Most of these curtains were made around the end of the 19th century,” she continued, noting her company recently worked on similar curtains from Monroe County and from Clifton Springs.

Mary Donovan, historical society president, said after discovering the curtain the society decided it was important to have the fabric restored.

“We did some research, and we found that (West Lake Conservators) were the best at doing that type of work,” she explained.

Last spring, Donovan continued, society members applied for and received a $6,090 grant from the Lower Hudson Conference of Historical Agencies and Museums to finance the restoration.

“Most of these curtains are painted in a water-soluble medium, which makes them very tricky,” Blakney said. “They're very difficult to clean, and they become damaged through their use.”

Over the past several weeks, the West Lake Conservators staff has replaced the curtain's broken hanging bars, cleaned it using special dry-cleaning methods and “strip-lined” it, which Blakney explained is a method of adding additional fabric support to its edges.

“Some of these treatments we do in a ‘minimalist' approach. If budget is no object, the sky's the limit. ... But if the budget is limited, as is often the case with these theater curtains, we do what we're able to with the funds we have available.”

And Blakney said her company's work on restoring theater curtains may be just a beginning.

“Our long-term goal is to do a statewide survey and locate more of these painted theater curtains,” she said. A similar study recently done in Vermont, she explained, found more than 100 curtains there.

“There's no telling how many we can find here (in New York),” she added.

Learn more

WHAT: West Lake Conservators

WHERE: 4207 Railroad St., Mottville

INFORMATION: Call 685-8534, or visit the organization's Web site www.westlakeconservators.com