Traces of Dorothy

The New Hampshire Historical Society's "book doctor" has been repairing the damage done by overeager genealogists for many years.

In 16 years, Dorothy Emery has patched up The Manning Family and taped together The History of Dunbarton. She's ripped apart and rebuilt The Paine Ancestry and glued Concord's vital records.

"You can see traces of Dorothy all over here," Emery said one morning last week, running her hand over the stacks of books in the hushed New Hampshire Historical Society Library. She paused on a tattered copy of the 1874 Concord city directory. "Does this one need a trace of Dorothy?" [Link]

A Reckless Rescuer of Records

Christine Zywocki has spent twenty years archiving monument transaction and burial records stored in a building in West Toledo, Ohio.

The records, some written in a loopy cursive and others by typewriter, give more than just a name and date of birth and death. Many include biographical information, handwritten correspondence from the deceased’s family members, and details and whereabouts of headstones the family bought.

The now-abandoned Lloyd Bros. Walker Co. building was looted by thieves last winter, and may be demolished with some 20,000 records still inside.

Mrs. Zywocki succeeded in rescuing a few thousand records from the building’s basement in early March and deposited them for safekeeping in a Toledo-Lucas County Public Library warehouse.

Her efforts to remove more were thwarted by city code enforcement officials, who quickly boarded up the building’s entrances and threatened her with arrest for trespassing.

“We can’t just let anybody walk in there and take whatever they want,” said City Law Director John Madigan. [Link]

Yes, better that these records be destroyed than to have them fall into the hands of a genealogical vigilante.

Something's Rotten in Groton

From The Boston (Mass.) Globe:

Years take toll on town records

Historic records decaying as funds go elsewhere

By Matt Gunderson, Globe Correspondent | September 18, 2005

GROTON -- The air in the high-ceilinged vault inside Groton Town Hall, with its tattered parchments and venerable-looking volumes, is cool and odorless.

Sliding a tall, reddish book from one metal shelf, Town Clerk Onorina Maloney opened it, trailing her white-gloved hand delicately across its faded writing.

"See," she said, pointing at the page. "Longley, Sawtell. It has all the old family names in town."

The volume is one of dozens of historic books in this vault, cataloging meeting minutes and vital records that date to the early 1600s. Unfortunately, Maloney explained, many of the books are falling apart.

"As time goes by, this will all fade away," she said, her hand grazing again over the book's worn, brown page.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

1853 Petition was Pure Rubbish

From The (Melbourne, Australia) Age:

Historic petition rescued from rubbish tip

By Larry Schwartz
September 6, 2005

JOCK Murphy was delighted. "You wouldn't do this job if you weren't excited by this sort of thing," the State Library manuscripts librarian said after viewing a 13-metre-long document discovered on a rubbish tip.

Mr Murphy said the fragile Bendigo Petition, signed by more than 5000 Victorian goldminers and others detailing grievances that culminated in the historic Eureka uprising in Ballarat, was a key document in a collection that also has Ned Kelly's Jerilderie Letter, papers from the Burke and Wills expedition and John Batman's journal.

[snip]

[Australiana collector Dr John Chapman] said yesterday he had received a call in the late 1980s from a man who thought he might be interested in a document he had found some years earlier. It was on a magnificent, carved roller. The caller had no idea what the document was and had found it on a rubbish tip.

"I said the roller's not the interest … is there anything else you have?" Dr Chapman said. "He said, 'Oh no. It was all papers and documents and things. But this I just saved because it was a nice bit of wood.'

[snip]

"It's quite funny because they roll it out with these cotton gloves now. You can't touch it. When I first took it home, it was rolled out on my front lawn, with all the bird droppings."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

No Mowing in Mower County

From the Austin (Minn.) Daily Herald of Sept. 2, 2005:

Cemetery debate: Preserving nature vs. preserving history

By Lee Bonorden/Austin Daily Herald

It's an interesting clash.

One one side is Prairie Smoke, an organization dedicated to "preserving and protecting our prairie heritage."

On the other side is Kathy Pike, a member of the Mitchell County Pioneer Cemetery Restoration Project.

[snip]

A week ago, Pike said in the Austin Daily Herald that she felt Pleasant Valley Township Cemetery was going ignored. A recent visit to the cemetery in northeastern Mower County revealed an overgrowth of grass, wildflowers and weeds, according to Pike.

She wanted somebody -- such as Boy Scouts or 4-H'ers -- to come to the rescue.

"Not so fast," said Pleasant Valley Township officials. The cemetery was being taken care of ... sort of.

According to Robert Kuhlman, who owns farm land around the cemetery, plus land around the well-manicured Pleasant Valley Lutheran Church cemetery nearby, allowing native prairie grasses and wildflowers to grow in the cemetery was a compromise to preserve natural habitat.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

I have to take the side of the naturalists in this debate. Giving a pioneer cemetery only occasional maintenance is actually historically accurate—few people living in rural areas at that time even maintained the yards in front of their own homes. In some parts of the world, the laissez-faire approach to cemetery-care is standard: Scientists have discovered strains of wheat and other grasses that have grown unmolested in European graveyards since antiquity. What better way to honor the memory of Minnesota's pioneers than to preserve the habitat that sustained them?