PARK HILL — One of the last things Shirley Pettengill did for the Oklahoma Historical Society was get killed in the line of duty.

Not to worry, though. Pettengill herself survived the incident, at which she portrayed an unlucky wagon train settler attacked by outlaws during last weekend’s reenactments at the Pawnee Bill Ranch.

Today Pettengill is retiring as site manager of the Murrell Home, a post she has held since Sept. 10, 1994. She has purchased a home in Tahlequah and plans to lend a hand at the Murrell Home occasionally. But she also plans to spend time reading, researching Cherokee history, and doing all the traveling she’s never been able to accomplish while taking care of historic properties.

The Friends of the Murrell Home will honor her July 12, and last Friday held a luncheon for two other longtime Murrell Home helpers who also are ending their duties. Chester “Chet” Grimm, a retired industrial arts teacher, has left his mark, literally, on just about every portion of the antebellum home, along with the nearby cabin and corn crib. Faye Turman has served as a site attendant, leading tours, working in the gift shop and performing other duties, for six years.

Grimm started volunteering at the Murrell Home in January 2000. He had moved to Tahlequah from Konawa, where he taught at Northern Oklahoma State College, to be with his daughter and her family here. His son-in-law, Dr. Bill Corbett, is a professor of history at Northeastern State University, and frequently volunteers at the Murrell Home. So it was only natural for Grimm to lend his expertise to build a display case, the first of many projects.

Pettengill has spent her adult life on historic properties working with preservation efforts. She came to the Murrell Home from the Drummond Home in Hominy, where she had been 14 years.

“I’ve always been interested in preservation projects,” she said.

She was educated in Colorado and Arizona, concentrating on history and anthropology while obtaining her master’s in Arizona. During that time she worked at the Arizona State Museum.

“Anthropology teaches you to search for the reason why,” she explained.

Her interest in anthropology was sparked when she read “Ishi,” a book about the last member of California’s Yahi tribe. He was kept and studied for many years, as something of a living specimen, at the Museum of Anthropology a the University of California at Berkeley.

Pettengill then worked at Fort Concho museum at San Angelo, Texas, then at the Old City Park in Dallas, which housed a collection of historic buildings.

“They began to move buildings there. There was an antebellum mansion, there was a farmhouse, a school, a church,” she said.

In 1980, the Oklahoma Historical Society had just acquired the Drummond House.

“I was coming to Oklahoma for a year. That’s what they told me, that the house would be open in one year,” she said.

She quickly learned that restoring and maintaining an old property is no easy task. Because of the state bidding process, it took much longer to bid and award the contracts and get the house restored. She stayed 14 years, although the restoration didn’t require such an extensive period.