The Mayhew Cabin Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The Mayhew Cabin with John Brown’s Cave Museum interprets the history of Nebraska’s Underground Railroad. The Mayhew Cabin Foundation’s Board of Directors are as follows:
Board of Directors
Cathleen M. Van Winkle, President, Secretary, Treasurer
Cathleen Van Winkle started volunteering at the Mayhew Cabin in 2008. In March of 2009, Cathleen was installed as a Board Member and served as Vice President for several years before becoming President of the Board in August of 2018.
In late 2013, Cathleen realized that the museum focused solely on the rescuers (John Brown, John Kagi, and the Kagy/Mayhew families) and not on those who were aided. The names and identities of the twelve freedom seekers aided by the Mayhew’s in February of 1859 were generally unknown. To rectify that, she began the process of uncovering the identities of the former slaves. Because Underground Railroad activity was illegal and highly secretive, no records were kept. Therefore, uncovering information took extensive research. During the process of identifying the names, she found herself becoming increasingly attached to the people and their families. They became affectionately known as “The Twelve.” After identifying ten of the twelve names, she began to track the families forward in time with the ultimate goal of locating a living descendant. That goal was accomplished early in 2014.
Cathleen Van Winkle is a self-employed real property appraiser. She loves cats, history, mysteries, research, writing books, Victorian houses, and collecting antiques.
Dr. David H. Van Winkle, At Large
David Van Winkle became a board member in July of 2019. David obtained his PhD in biology in 2001 and was a plant pathologist with the USDA in Lincoln, Nebraska and Fargo, North Dakota until 2007. Due to an unexpected life-changing event in late 2006, he redirected his career into business analytics working for various private companies including Gallup, NRC Health, Streck, Inc., and GeneDx. After 17 years, David left the corporate business realm in 2023 for a job with the US Postal Service, taking pride in doing his part to ensure every address in the country is able to send and receive mail nearly every day of the year..
Anita Robarge, At Large
Anita Robarge’s interest in history began in high school, when she took an AP History class. Anita graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a BA in English. While in college, she enjoyed how literature both records and reflects our history. After graduation, Anita worked in retail management, and later, as a Legal Secretary where she handled conservatorships, divorces, discrimination, guardian ad litems, adoptions, etc. She started working for the City of Omaha in 2007, first in Permits and Inspections, then Police Records, and for the last 10 years, as a Secretary for the Omaha Fire Department. Anita visited the Mayhew cabin several times while growing up in Nebraska, and later traveled to Harper’s Ferry and experienced the site of John Brown’s last stand. She has also been to Jamestown, Virginia, where the first English settlement was established, and Williamsburg, Virginia, where the Revolutionary War started. In addition, she has visited the Gettysburg battlegrounds, George Washington’s Mt. Vernon, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, and most of the museums in Washington, D.C. Anita collects history books, the majority of which are about the Civil and Revolutionary Wars.
Kristine Gerber, At Large
Kristine Gerber graduated from the University of Nebraska-Kearney where her journalism major gave her a love of meeting people and telling their stories. For the past 25 years, Kristine has done just that by uncovering and sharing the history of Nebraska and its built environment through publications, events, and advocacy work. Currently, Kristine manages Omaha Public Schools Making Invisible Histories Visible program where she works with secondary students and social studies teachers to uncover and share Nebraska’s diverse history.
Robert Nelson, At Large
Robert Nelson Amid his 30-year journalism career in Texas, Phoenix, Omaha, and Washington, D.C., Robert Nelson has often steered from current events to investigate lost history. One such tangent led to a recent piece, “The Fever-Heated and Blood-Hot Abolitionists of Falls City,” for History Nebraska magazine as well as a successful nomination of the “Site of the Dorrington House and Barn” in Falls City to the National Park Service National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. With the designation, the Dorrington site in Falls City becomes the second location of confirmed Underground Railroad activity in Nebraska in the 760-member Network to Freedom. The first, of course, is Mayhew Cabin.
Nelson currently is under contract as a media consultant for the National Park Service as he works on his third book. In his spare time, he continues to expand his research on the Western Line of the Underground Railroad through Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa along a path previously used by free-state settlers and militia intent on circumventing a Missouri-River blockade of Kansas Territory by pro-slavery Border Ruffians. Nelson and a growing number of scholars and town leaders between Topeka and Iowa City hope their work will one day result in the creation of the Army of the North National Historic Trail from Iowa City, through Tabor, Falls City, Nebraska City and Holton, to Topeka’s Constitution Hall, which served as a headquarters and supply depot for efforts to assist freedom seekers on their journey to Canada.
With all of that said, the Mayhew Cabin Museum is not about those pictured above. It is about the people you will learn about by visiting the history pages on this website or by visiting the museum, namely Allen and Barbara Mayhew, John Henri Kagi, John Brown, and The Twelve. It is also about YOU because history belongs to each and every one of us.
If you can, please donate to the Foundation to help preserve this history. Thank you for your support!
The Mayhew Cabin Foundation would like to recognize the time, energy, and expertise of David Van Winkle in building this website.