Museum Newsletter - 8 Apr 2009

Friends of the Bullitt County History Museum E-Newsletter
April 8, 2009 (Volume 5, Number 5)

Dear Friends,

Announcements...

>>Genealogical Society Meeting this Saturday, April 11. The Bullitt County Genealogical Society will hold its regular monthly meeting a week early this month, so that we can offer a special (and free!) seminar.

The seminar is on beginning family history research, and is presented by professional genealogists Betty Rolwing Darnell and Deborah Lord Campisano. This is a rare opportunity for the beginner (or those who want to begin) genealogist to learn about genealogy research.

• When: Saturday, April 11, 2009, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• Where: Usual meeting location, Ridgway Public Library, Second & Walnut in Shepherdsville.
• Cost: None, but please register by calling Betty Darnell, so that she will have enough handouts.

There will be a one-hour lunch break. Bring your own, or patronize one of our area restaurants.

This will take the place of our regular meeting for April.

>>Museum closed half day Good Friday. The courthouse, and therefor the museum, closes at noon April 10, for Good Friday.

>>Ancestral Trails Book Fair. This is a great event, with lots of vendors and workshops related to history and genealogy. We will be there as well! Saturday, April 18, from 9:00 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Pritchard Community Center in Elizabethtown. Check www.aths.com for details.

Activity...

>>Lone Grave work progressing. Asking for donations! After about a year of working on the project, I am happy to say that the Lone Grave is about to have its new hand-made fence! (If you are not aware of the Lone Grave story, you can find it on our web site.) The fence is paid-for by the land owner on whose watch the original was destroyed, but we have been adding phlox ground-cover, among other things, that might cost a few hundred dollars before we are done.

That money is coming out of pocket and genealogical accounts, and we would sure like to see that money replaced so that we can continue our work.

If you can spare a bit of money, please consider making a donation to the Bullitt County Genealogical Society. Send it to P.O. Box 960, Shepherdsville, Kentucky 40165, saying that it is a donation. Thank you!

>>Lone Grave and Paroquet Springs photos? We continue to look for more photos of The Lone Grave, and of the Paroquet Springs Resort that once existed there.

Amazingly, though the "Springs" was a nationally-known resort from 1840 to about 1917, housing as many as 700 people at a time, we have no photos of the resort.

We feel certain that the generally-wealthy people that visited the resort surely took many photos, but perhaps the photos are just not now recognized as Paroquet Springs photos.

>> We have hung a Bullitt County flag in one of the museum display rooms, with text explaining the symbolism of the flag. I plan to add that to the web site eventually, and include it in the next newsletter.

>>Web Site Time Line continues to grow. Along with several other updates and additions to our web site. Web Master Charles Hartley has been adding a number of items to the time line, and has linked many of the items to further information. That means that you can click on a symbol next to the item, and you will be automatically sent to more detailed information that is on our site.

>>Web Site photos. Drawn from our archives, the web site's front page now features a different photo each day.

>>A Resurgent Use for Salt Wells? We are researching the possibility of using our still-existing county salt-water resources, used in pioneer-days for preserving meat, etc., to now use as a local supplement for fighting icy winter roads. Our problem right now is finding a salt-water well that still works, so that we can have an inexpensive source to experiment with. All the wells we know of failed (collapsed) long ago or have been filled (we just missed one by a few days!). If you know of a still-usable local salt well, or know of information about other areas that have used such sources for treating icy roads, please let me know!

For Your Information...

Interested in "green" information and efforts being done in Kentucky? Check out the Land, Air, and Water web site at www.eec.ky.gov.

Finally...

Memories in the Palm of Your Hand

Memory can often be a confusing and erroneous thing in historical writing, as well as in everyday life.

I remember when I was writing a history of a small church several years ago, one elder member approached me to make sure that I knew that he was one of the last charter members of the church. The problem was, that he actually was not.

The very honest elder gentleman, had no intention of lying. It was just that his memory was playing tricks on him. He was absolutely, with-out-a-doubt, positive that he had joined the little church back in 1941. But the church minutes did not back him up. Not only did I not find him in that charter session, I found him as joining another church at the time, actually joining the newer church over a year later.

Over the many years, he had simply forgotten that detail, and honestly, insistently remembered the facts differently, until shown the original minutes.

That is exactly THE major issue when writing history using people's memories as a source. Though a person may be "absolutely, positively sure" about the exact facts, those facts might well be only very inexact memories, very much smudged over time.

In the shorter term, our own daily memories can be a problem for most of us, each of us handling and storing those memories in different ways.

Sadly, take myself.

For some reason, I have always been able to remember business administration facts very well. I can, for example, sometimes quote, almost verbatim, motions that were made in meetings even years ago, and who made them, and what discussion there was. Perhaps that is why I enjoy government administration so much and consider myself pretty good at leading such meetings.

But my other memory skills are too-often awfully weak. I often tell people who ask something of me, that if I write it down, it will get done, but I must write it down. My wife, Bonnie, claims that I would have difficulty getting home if I lost my little calendar (we call it memory) book. Museum Volunteers Judy Richardson and Jose' Rosario, have made a tradition of reminding me every Wednesday, that I need to go over to the library to sign checks (I am Board Treasurer of the county public library system).

Indeed, I have three levels of memory helps that I carry with me (in my defense, I am active in many organizations on many projects). For scheduling, I carry a small calendar book. In my pocket, a carry a wad of notes about things that need to be done fairly soon.

And finally, if there is something that absolutely needs to be done right away, I write a note on the palm of my hand.

This one drives my wife crazy. She considers it unsanitary and "just not right". Making it worse for her, our daughter has taken up the habit.

But I had an answer for her on a level against which there can be no argument.

I quoted the Bible, Isaiah 49:15-16, in which God himself says in part about remembering his people, "....yea, they may forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands...."

Hey, if it's good enough for God, it's certainly good enough for me.

Now, if I can only remember where I put my glasses.

Thank you for being a Friend of Bullitt County History.

David Strange
Bullitt County History Museum
Executive Director
Museum Phone: 502-921-0161
David.Strange@BullittCountyHistory.org
BullittCountyHistory.org