Museum Newsletter - 26 Sep 2009

Friends of the Bullitt County History Museum E-Newsletter
September 26, 2009 (Volume 5, Number 11)

Dear Friends,

Announcements...

>>New 1917 Train Wreck book.

Thanks to author/researcher Charles Hartley, cover designer Daniel Buxton, and Publishers Printing Company, the Museum has published its first full-blown book. This is a final version of "The Train Wreck, December 20, 1917 Shepherdsville Kentucky". This is the culmination of several earlier booklet versions, and a couple of years of research.

This new book incorporates all of the previous work, plus numerous related letters, articles, and commission findings of the time, all in one combined volume, handsomely paperback softbound. This version is also in larger print for easier reading, and includes some additional photographs. For details and pricing info, check out the announcement page.

>>Bible Family Histories?

Volunteer Lynn Eddington asks for you to send copies of your Bible Family Histories to the museum. It's not done much anymore, but many families once kept a page or two in their family Bible that listed their family history and genealogy. That can be a great source of research. Lynn asks you to send a copy of those pages to us for our research records. Or bring the Bible by and we'll make a copy of the pages for you.

By the way, we have a few such old family Bibles buried deep in our museum archives. We'll be trying to get those out and review those records as well.

>>Bullitt County Theatre Company to perform "Frankenstein".

It's a new history of sorts that Bullitt County has a developing live theater company, thanks to an active troupe led by Bill Breuer. This version of "Frankenstein", just in time for Halloween, is a collaborative effort of Timothy Brown, John Hetzel, and Bill Breuer. Playing October 1-10, check out their web site for details.

Activity...

>>Web Site Additions.

To check out the many new additions to our web site, to to our "Latest Additions to Our Web Site" page.

>>Recent Donations:

Don Deering dropped by the museum recently and donated a copy of a law case titled "Joseph Brooks & Heirs Vs. George Reed", transcribed by Robert E. McDowell. The 1 1/2 inch thick binder is about a Bullitt County case that lasted from 1810 to 1825, and mentions several items of interest within its contents. We continue quite a lot of documentation work on the Brooks family, and have scanned to computer to date some 500 photos and original documents.

>>Newspapers organized. We have to be very restrictive in collecting newspapers and clippings at the museum. Old newspaper materials can introduce or attract damaging bugs into the museum archive, and we simply don't have the space to store many newspapers when they can be found on microfilm.

Nevertheless, we do have quite a collection.

The problem has been that they were all scattered in various drawers around our archive room, without any order.

Museum Volunteer Daniel Buxton has solved that issue for us. He had us purchase special archive boxes and protective film. Then he started looking through all the old newspapers and boxes of news clippings, sorted them, stored them, labeled them, and created a database of what we have.

Daniel has now completed that work. We now have several large boxes of papers, properly sorted, stored, and recorded. There were 127 Louisville newspapers and a total of some 200. Each box has labels describing the contents, and we have a data base that describes them all. I hadn't thought of it until now, but perhaps we can add that list to our web site in the future.

It is a pretty good collection, dating back to before 1900.

But I need to emphasize here that the museum can only rarely accept donations of newspapers, due to space and archive protection considerations.

Thanks Daniel for yet another great project completion for the museum!

>>Memorial Events.

We participated in a "911" memorial event at the courthouse, and a Veteran memorial marker dedication at Shepherdsville City Park.

>>Many good Visitors.

Summer time continues to bring us visitors from around the country. Recent visitors come from St. Louis, California, Ohio, Tennessee, and Alabama. It's especially nice to meet face to face with some of the distant readers of this newsletter. By the way, I think we are closing in on having had visitors from every state in the Union, and nearly that receiving this newsletter. Welcome all!

>>Museum Worker Jose Rosario continues his research on Henry Mattingly, a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient buried in Lebanon Junction, but whose grave is not so marked. We would like to have some sort of ceremony in 2011 when the national organization of Medal of Honor recipients meets in Louisville.

>>Volunteer Judy Richardson continues her research on Gardner McKay, a TV star in the old series "Adventures in Paradise". McKay is buried in Hebron Cemetery and led quite a life.

>>And all of this work while serving our many visitors day to day.

Finally...

1971 "Opportunity for Generation of Peace"

While sorting through some odds and ends of papers at the museum, I came across a 1971 Courier-Journal newspaper article titled "Opportunity finally at hand for a generation of peace". Sadly, we know that was not to be.

Many times throughout history, hopeful souls raise their voice contending that "maybe this time" we have all learned to live together "in perfect harmony". Maybe "this time" we can all "just get along". I am reminded of the Biblical passages like "Peace, Peace, when there is no Peace", as well as the scriptural thought that there will always be "wars and rumors of wars".

World War One was called the "War to End all Wars", because surely such an awful, catastrophic event would never be needed or attempted again.

Then there was WWII.

I am thinking of this as we come out of working with several memorial events for Veterans and "911".

Honorable peace is a very difficult thing to hold on to for very long.

I live in a little area called "Peaceful Valley". And it is indeed wonderfully peaceful except ... except when some dog starts barking, or those dang noisy 4-wheelers come roaring down the road, or that !!!??@!!. NEIGHBOR ... (just kidding)

But I digress.

We can all, each one of us, work to make our little bit of the world a little bit more peaceful, for as long as we can.

Respect one another.

Treat one another as we would want to be treated.

Work to cause peace and merciful justice in our own little bit of history, in our own little bit of life.

Understand one another. Wish one another well.

Maybe then we can at least have peace in our hearts.

So,

Peace to you my Friends.

Thank you for all the good you do.

Thank you for being a Friend of the Bullitt County History Museum.

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