Oh golly, I thought, as brittle black and white photographs fluttered loose from their scrapbook pages and littered the floor. Merely trying to remove the decaying albums from their shelves had resulted in a shower of photographic material, and I hastily restored the escapees to their rightful pages. And there’s a whole closet full of these!… Continue reading Monsters in the Closet
Something I dearly love about public history is the variety of work available. One minute I’m plumbing the depths of online census records, going blind over 19th-century penmanship and wondering why names like Domer and Achsah haven’t made a come-back yet. And the next, I’m cleaning a century’s worth of barn dirt off of a… Continue reading Barn Treasure
Along with many of you, the nation-wide COVID-19 quarantine has given me some extra time at home. As a result, the pace of my latest project kicked into high-gear, and I’m tearing (metaphorically, of course) through the more than 800 letters sent between my great-grandparents over the course of their courtship, engagement, and early marriage.… Continue reading Social Distancing, 1930s’ Style
What could be more fitting than to be handed the battered, tattered, well-used maps to a small rural cemetery on All Saints' Day? A perfect project for these dreary November nights! St. Titus Church, in Titusville, Pennsylvania, recently acquired the plot maps for the Mageetown Immaculate Conception Cemetery, located between Titusville and the nearby town… Continue reading Mapping Souls
The Free-Range Historian 