November 2011
Greetings History Lovers!
Oh my... where has time gone! I'm
afraid your humble correspondent hasn't sent out a newsletter for quite some
time. Some of you have signed up time and again and I know you've been
wondering why you didn't get a newsletter. There has been so much water under the
bridge I'm just going to list some of the new things I have posted in the
last couple of years...
Wow... that's quite a list. Hopefully
many of you have followed my blog on OMC and kept up with the news as time
flew by.
I'm excited to tell about a new
product I'm offering on
Prairie Books dot com. I have created a CD with
scans of the old 1909 Meade County Plat Book. This beautiful old book must
have been plentiful back in 1909, as many people have them... the Museum has
several in different stages of deterioration. I have two, one of which was
falling apart anyway, so I took it apart, scanned it and made a PDF of the book. I also
spent hours going from section to section and listing the landowners on the
maps. So, the CD contains a PDF of the Plat Book and a PDF with an
alphabetical listing of every landowner... which will be worth the price of
the CD even if you have an original book. I can't tell you how much I've
used this myself since having it done and residing on my computer!
Just last week I was trying to
identify a photo from an early rural school. The names were listed on the
back, but not what the school's district number was. Most of the kids were
"Wilson" or "Thompson" and I couldn't connect them anywhere. Finally I went
and searched for the two names in the Plat Book index and found two families
living less than a mile from the same rural school. With the first names of the
fathers I could check obituaries... one thing led to another... I found all
the kids, and now knew the name of their school. I could also print out just
that section of the plat to put in my file. What a wonderful tool.
I'm still working at the Meade County
Historical Museum. We have a fantastic crew there as well as excellent
volunteers. We are gaining every day on making the Museum a researcher's
dream. We have recently reorganized the closets and now we know what we have
and where it is. I found many treasures I hope to share with you in coming
months on OMC. I came up with three large tubs of old photos which have been
disorganized and mishandled for quite some time. It will take a long time to
go through them, but what a labor of love for me! You can keep up with what
is happening at the Museum by checking at our "Week at the Museum" page on
OMC. We plan to have our annual MCHS newsletter out soon and I will send you a
link.
Well... that's about it for now. I'll
leave you with this thought to ponder....
Inside every older person is a
younger person wondering,
'What the heck happened?"
Catch you next
time!
Nancy O
