Gail Van Tassell may have retired from teaching, but she hasn’t escaped the homework.
The Concord Historical Society was a natural landing place for Tassell, who sought out a way to continue learning and stay connected to the community after four decades working in Concord’s schools.
The variety and rigor required to run a classroom has translated directly to volunteer work. In addition to rotating exhibits and permanent displays inside its museum, the Concord Historical Society hosts film screenings, author readings, speakeasy pop-ups and open house tours. The nonprofit also makes home visits, Van Tassell said, where they’ve been invited to give neighbors and retirees private history lessons tailored to where they live.
The 70-year-old’s mission echoes the work of Ruth Galindo, one of the Concord Historical Society’s founders and a fourth-generation resident of the city that’s now preserved inside her childhood home. Galindo, who died in 1999, was the last direct descendant of Concord’s founding father. She was also a Spanish teacher at Mount Diablo High School in 1971, Van Tassell said, when she became one of the loudest voices among residents who “decided it was important to celebrate that Concord history. My goal is to continue that and keep it going forward.”
Van Tassell has seen recent headlines warning that this “could be troubling times” for nonprofits that depend on federal funding. She said that’s not a concern that’s top of mind, because pandemic-era economic stimulus money was the only federal money CHS has secured. However, that means the Concord Historical Society has to get even more creative to stay financially afloat — depending on local money to continue telling the city’s ever-changing story.
The organization’s president isn’t shy to admit that the CHS “did not always collect things that show the diversity of our individual community.” But she said that’s part of the motivating force behind the nonprofit’s current work — pointing to partnerships with groups like the Diablo Japanese American Cultural Society, who helped tell the story of the Japanese hotel in Concord that was burned to the ground during WWII, as well as other locals that can are are willing to capture the clearest possible picture of the past.
“That’s a part of our history that we cannot put in the corner, we have to be clear about that,” Van Tassell said. But she also said that Concord’s history is formed day-by-day, highlighting the thousands of people who gathered in May to consecrate the Hindu Shiva Murugan Temple that took more than five years and $5 million to build on a former church site near Todos Santos Plaza.
And she knows curating history is always easy. “Museums are under attack to try and make things palatable,” she said, “instead of things that cause us to ask more questions and understand more.”
Q: Why has one of the last remaining Victorian ranch houses in Contra Costa County – the Galindo Home, which was built in 1856, completely restored by the Concord Historical Society and now serves as the society’s museum – stood the test of time in Concord, while other structures haven’t?
You do have to think about it. Early on, in the 70s, one of the reasons for the Historical Society starting was some of the buildings that were being torn down as Concord moved towards a more modern look. In fact, we used to have a Carnegie Library in Concord. When that was torn down, some people felt a real loss. Cities go through those growth periods, and they’re looking for something new and exciting and whatever. But preserving something – you have to really think it through and decide, one, is the building something you really can preserve, and two, do you have the money to cover that?
Q: What made you care about local history?
Personally, my family was very involved in the city of Concord and the historical society; my grandmother was a teacher in the community, and worked with many of the people who were the first to start the group. As time moved on and I got ready to retire, I was trying to consider how I could be connected to things that I’m interested in. Once I became a member of the historical society, it didn’t take long before I found myself helping out with tasks. That’s how volunteers work – we’re all really willing to be out there and work. The more volunteers we could have now, the more we could increase membership, which would be fabulous.
Q: Whenever you and other longterm volunteers on CHS’ roster decide to step back from leadership roles, will the organization will be able to weather that transition?
That’s my goal. I think most of the nonprofits that I know are struggling to find that next generation. It’s hard, we’re not sure how to find them. We were running a summer camp for children who are in third and fourth grade, but after Covid, we haven’t been able to draw all of those kids back to us. Yes, the people who can volunteer are probably people who are closer to retirement, but it’s that young family that we want to come in and get excited about what we have here. We just need to keep reaching out.
Q: How do you get the community excited to learn facts and history about Concord, other than posting regularly to social media and speaking during city council meetings?
I rely on all our members to get out and share information. When we hosted an event about the town that is no longer, Port Chicago, as a fundraiser, more than a hundred people RSVP’d online. That’s already a lot, but then I got people who don’t do Eventbrite – they’re handing me their checks – and then there was a fairly large crowd of walk-ins. That’s a nice chunk of change, and we could have an event like that multiple times throughout the year, so we’re trying to really tailor what interests this community, and beyond.
My dad used to say, “When Gail’s not talking, then she’s probably sick.” So I’m happy to talk about something that I am passionate about. Our members are really strong believers – most are probably my age and older – so their passion is pretty strong, they’ve been doing it for years. I think that makes a difference, and why the Concord Historical Society continues to move forward.
Q: Throughout 2025, concerns have percolated about the ability to preserve and maintain and record history, even in real time. What do you make out of this particular moment in time, specifically regarding the role of the CHS?
This is a strange, bizarre moment that we’re living in in America. I worry that people will start to try and take some parts of history and shove it away. In the beginning, historical societies, which go back to the late 1700s, probably focused on one group of people – the people who were white, who had money. We have a display right now that shows one of the Mount Diablo High School yearbooks from the early 40s; after one year, there’s a whole group of Japanese people missing from the yearbook – that’s when the internment camps came. So we put that out there so that people can see that difference, asking them to notice the difference from this year to the next.
Q: So, what do you wish people knew about Concord?
That you really have not spent much time in Concord if you don’t see what’s great about it. It’s diverse — I saw that everyday in the schools. People have different, funny attitudes about the city. I’ve grown up in this area, and for a long time, it was always the closer you were to the tunnel, you could be prouder of where you live. It’s my job, at least sitting on the Concord Historical Society, to be able to share why Concord is an exciting place to live. And when you know the history – including history that’s just sitting right there on our property – that’s exciting to me.
GAIL VAN TASSELL
- Age: 70
- Title: President, Concord Historical Society
- Residence: Concord
- Hometown: Walnut Creek
- Career: 40+ years of teaching. kindergarten through eighth grade
FIVE (HISTORICAL) FACTS ABOUT CONCORD
- The first inhabitants of modern day Concord was a small tribelet of Chupcan (Bay Miwok) Indians, who lived along the valley’s streams and hillsides before the first Spanish explorers arrived in the 1770s.
- While the city was founded in 1869 as “Todos Santos,” the name chosen by the Pacheco family who oversaw Rancho Monte del Diablo — a Mexican land grant of nearly 18,000 acres in Contra Costa — the community over time became known as Concord.
- When musicians travelled the country recording folk songs during the Depression, that Works Progress Administration project included tapes of Contra Costa County immigrants.
- Jack Nicholson’s first film, The Wild Ride, was filmed in and around Concord in 1960 — not long after the late Harvey Berman, who directed and produced the film, initially moved to the city for a job as the drama teacher at Mount Diablo High School.
- The Hindu Shiva Murugan Temple is the first-ever Panchavarna temple in the nation – a rare, five-color design rooted in ancient Hindu traditions, often found in South Indian temples to symbolize divine energies and cosmic balance.