Heavenly Host:
Beloit woman boasts angelic museum
by Sarah Johns

Joyce Berg, the museum’s only living angel. Photo courtesy of Angel Museum

If you ever happen to visit the Angel Museum in Beloit, you’ll recognize Joyce Berg, the owner of most of the angels here, immediately. She wears glasses with gold frames and a tiny gold angel in the corner of the right lens. Her hair is a pearlescent white that reflects the light streaming through the round, stained-glass windows. And, most noticeably, she’s the one in the silver lamé robe with the white wings attached to the back and the silver garland halo framing the top of her head. This is not standard operating procedure. Joyce is the only living “angel” inhabiting the museum.

Joyce is an energetic, 71-year-old former kindergarten teacher and grandmother of four who has spent the last 22 years amassing more than 12,000 angels. And she can tell you as much information about any one of those angels as she can about one of her children. And although many people collect things, how many others can say they have built their lives around their collection, even down to the way they dress?

A heavenly idea
The story of how Joyce and her husband Lowell began collecting angels and eventually opened this museum is one that would make any skeptic believe in a higher power. As Joyce says, “It had some kind of guidance. It really just all was not planned.” In 1976 Joyce and Lowell were on vacation in Florida. They were supposed to meet some friends but realized they were early, so they pulled in to a strip mall to look around. “We just happened to park in front of an antique store with angels in the window,” explains Joyce. They went into the store and purchased their first two “official” angels.

Unofficially, the couple received their first angels as a Christmas gift from Joyce’s mother in 1954, the year they were married. This gift probably wasn’t divine intervention—they were purchased “just because my mother happened to see them in Peoria, Illinois, and just thought they were cute.” Heaven-sent or not, these first two angels have a special place in the museum, along with her grandmother’s cherub-adorned belt buckle and her great-grandmother’s button. Joyce found the button when going through some old boxes. “It was quite dirty, and when I cleaned it up I said, ‘Oh! There’s cherubs on it!’”

After that fateful Florida vacation, the Bergs decided to purchase angels as souvenirs every time they went on vacation because, as Joyce says, “you have to get souvenirs when you travel around.” Lowell is nearly as passionate about the collection as Joyce, and Joyce feels it is an integral part of their relationship. “It was a hobby because it was something we enjoyed doing together. And he will tell you, with his little jovial humor that he has, that the reason we have so many angels is because he bought me one every time he misbehaved,” she laughs.

By 1994, Joyce and Lowell were the proud owners of more than 10,000 angels. The museum wasn’t open yet, so where did they store all these heavenly beings?

“They were in every room of the house, needless to say. Even in the bathrooms and the kitchen. And it came to taking out a doorway that wasn’t absolutely necessary and putting shelving in. We took out a window in each of two bedrooms and put shelving behind the draperies so when the curtains were closed it looked just like a window, and when you were giving a tour you’d draw the drapes open. And then they kept getting pushed closer and closer together,” explains Joyce.

That same year the Bergs began looking for a place the angels could call their own. The need for a separate museum became clear the day a tour bus company called to ask if it could bring a tour through the house.

“So I said noooo, that’s not a possibility. No, no,” Joyce states. She didn’t like the idea of 20 or more people using the bathroom and maybe digging through the fridge.

So Joyce and Lowell began scouting the Mt. Horeb-Dodgeville area for buildings that would make an ideal museum. Little did they know that the perfect building was in their own town of Beloit and was just a few short months from demolition.

A divine location
One beautiful July day the Bergs were headed to the mall when they passed by the old St. Paul Catholic Church. Joyce remembers the experience clearly.

“The double front doors were open and they were cream colored and the sun was shining on them. And as we went by the light went on in my head.”

They immediately headed to a little shop owned by a friend who was Catholic and whom they figured would know the story behind the church, which was empty. The friend directed them to several former church parishioners and told Joyce to act quickly—if they didn’t find a good use for the church within six to eight months, it would be demolished. Dozens of phone calls, one feasibility study and two city council meetings later, the Angel Museum project was approved.

The Angel Museum in Beloit is home to more than 12,000 angels. Photo courtesy of Angel Museum.

Joyce loves to talk about all the renovations and preparations that followed. In one corner of the museum, she has a display of pictures taken when the museum was being torn apart and rebuilt. She reaches up to pull the light cord with the small angel attached to the end and illuminates a picture of the flooding that occurred before the museum opened. She doesn’t seem too upset by the flood when she talks about it. And why should she be? It’s just too perfectly biblical. She remembers nearly every aspect of the building’s transformation, and when she pauses ever so slightly, she waves it off by saying, “when you get old you get these senior moments.”

Just below these photographs are dozens of newspaper and magazine clippings that Joyce refers to as “my publicity.” Standing prominently in its very own case is an article from the National Enquirer. When Joyce’s attention is drawn to this article with the picture of Joyce next to the angels, hands clasped in mock prayer, she laughs and recites the headline in a singsong voice. “Heavens Above! Grandma’s Living with 10,455 Angels!” Her attitude about the whole thing is pretty blasé. After all, there wasn’t anything that unusual about the experience. “They just come out and take your picture.”

You can also read about Joyce in Life, Ripley’s Believe it or Not (“next to Bob Hope there”), The Smithsonian and numerous collectors’ magazines. She was also in People, but it isn’t part of the display because “I don’t have the People one laminated yet.”

This unaffected-by-semi-celebrity-status attitude seems to affect the whole family. Joyce’s son Brian doesn’t even collect the articles and magazines his mother has appeared in, although he does admit “what she has accomplished is newsworthy because it’s unique and unusual.” A little understated perhaps, but this has been a part of his life since the end of high school. By the time he returned from college, the collection was gaining speed. “They had an accumulation before I even knew what was happening,” he says. Does he think there’s anything unusual about this? “There’s times when it seems a little eccentric,” he admits.

Oprah's angels
Apparently not eccentric enough to deter Oprah Winfrey from sending 571 angels to the museum several years ago. When Cher was a guest on Oprah’s show, they were discussing angels and Oprah commented that she never sees any black angels. According to Joyce, “that was all it took. Immediately, practically, her fans started sending some angels. And I believe within a matter of a few months she had to say ‘Please don’t send any more! I don’t have any place to put them!’”

The board of trustees that oversees the museum called Oprah’s people and began negotiating for the angels to be sent to the Angel Museum. During this time, Lowell decided it would be a good idea to watch Oprah’s show to see if she would mention the angels. As luck (or something else?) would have it, one day Lowell told Joyce to come quick, Oprah was talking about the angels.

“And sure enough she had all of those angels—well, I don’t know if it was all of the collection, but they had shelving and they had angels in the background—and she said all these angels that you sent me are going to be boxed up and sent to an angel museum in Wisconsin,” Joyce explains.

Joyce was excited, although you couldn’t tell from her interview with the Associated Press in Chicago. When they asked her what she thought about the angels coming to her museum, Joyce said, “I think it’s fine.”

A perfect team
Joyce’s partner in crime throughout the years has always been Lowell. Joyce met Lowell when she was teaching first grade with Lowell’s sister in Elgin, Illinois. After they married, Lowell bought a grain elevator in Beloit and they relocated to Wisconsin. Joyce taught kindergarten in Beloit for a year, “but then I got pregnant and had my own kindergartner,” she laughs.

The Bergs began collecting when their two children were nearly out of the house and into college. Although they both fell in love with collecting angels, Lowell says Joyce is much more involved than he is. Does Lowell ever don an angel costume along with his wife? “Never. I’m a devil.” But he does approve of Joyce wearing the outfit. “I think she looks charming in anything,” he confesses.

Lowell and Joyce’s favorite story in all of their experiences involves a very special angel they acquired by accident. They were driving through Colorado and made a wrong turn in Walsonberg. And then, like a vision sent from above, they saw the Fallen Angel Antique Shop. It was there that they saw a beautiful South American angel called the Santos Angel. But the price was steep—more than $200. Joyce looked longingly at the angel and said “I really want to take you home, but you’re a little too expensive.” At that moment, the angel’s right hand moved slightly downward, and Joyce was sold. Granted, the hand is attached by putty, which is pretty pliable. But still, a sign is a sign.

This is just one of many experiences that Joyce and Lowell have had over the years. They do everything together, and their bond is deepened by the work they put into the museum. The museum’s executive director, Carrie Schneberger, says, “Lowell is always by Joyce’s side. They’re a pair, they’re a team.” They take their work very seriously. “Working with Joyce is wonderful. She’s very meticulous. She is very, very involved. It’s something she’s very proud of,” Schneberger adds.

Although others may think they’re wonderful, Lowell thinks people might question their sanity. Of his children’s opinion he says, “I think they think we’re nuts.” And their friends? “They think we’re nuts too.” This begs the question, are they nuts?

“Just a little,” he says.

Of the thousands of angels in their collection, Joyce does not have one favorite. There are several that are special to her because she associates them with memories or the vacations when they were acquired. But she loves every single angel in the bunch. Lowell, however, shows some favoritism for one. “Just the live one,” he says.

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