Spring Teas 2026
Spring Teas 2026:
April 11/12, 2 - 4 pm
at the museum
Early registration for members only starts March 1, open to the general public March 15.
Four Generations of an Orchard Family
Now Open!
For long-time Sunnyvalians, the location of “Butcher’s Corner” will be familiar. Where we now see multi-story apartment blocks being constructed, the orchard of the Butcher family used to produce fruit. The farm had been in the family since 1881, when Rolla Butcher from Virginia and his wife Emma (Smith, from England) bought 160 acres of land. After Rolla’s early death, Emma ran the farm by herself, while raising her young children, and planted fruit trees. At the Fruit Growers’ convention in Sacramento in 1886, she was an oddity as a woman farmer among all the men present!
Over the next century and beyond, her descendants kept running the orchard operations until urban sprawl and infrastructure made it impossible to continue farming.
In this fascinating exhibition about one family’s life on a Sunnyvale orchard, visitors will enjoy a colorful display of artifacts from many eras: splendid attire along with personal items from family members, as well as items from everyday life, such as kitchen and farm tools, interior fixtures, china dishes and glassware. Many photographs of the farm and family portraits accompany the display to tell the story of the Butchers who lived on the land from 1881 to 2013.
