Preserving History

our house

A local library received a grant to procure some video equipment and auxiliary lights for the purpose of recording the history of the town and its older residents. Several churches will be celebrating their 150th anniversaries next year, so this project ties in nicely with those historic events. To begin the process, the library director asked if they could interview me about the history of my house and its place in the town when it was built in 1902. Of course I said yes as talking about my pretty lady is one of my favorite things. They may be sorry they asked - ha! Since she has just been freshly painted, the centenarian is looking great for her age.

We recently had a meeting to discuss the project. I brought along my notebook filled with the documents I collected to prove the age of the house when I applied for the century home plaque, as well as the two old issues of The Ladies' Home Journal that contain the drawings of plans used to build the house. I also showed them the book I made about the history of the house. I think these would be some nice visual aids for the taping. Most of the actual interview will take place at the library, but they also want to come to the house and shoot some footage of the house as well. The director does have some concern that other residents will expect him to do a video of their homes as well, so his answer to that will be to ask them what interesting items they have found about the house. He doesn't think many will have the amount of stuff that I have collected. I don't have a timetable yet for when the project will begin, but it should be fun!

Sandy Creek Covered Bridge

Another piece of history that I have been wanting to see is the Sandy Creek Covered Bridge in Jefferson County. It is one of four remaining covered bridges in Missouri. On Saturday we loaded up some drinks and the dog and drove down Highway 21. The bridge is nicely preserved and on a such a beautiful day there were several groups shooting pictures at the site. We decided to continue on with a walk and ended up finding a field of grazing horses. They were not the least bit concerned about us, or all the cars flying past on Old Highway 21.

horses in the field

Kirby

As luck would have it, Jim's business partner call while we were driving to say that he was at his lake house if we wanted to come by. As it is off of Highway 21, the timing could not have been better. We stopped and grabbed lunch for all of us, and enjoyed eating it on his deck overlooking the lake. Then we went out for a boat ride. Kirby loves to get on the boat, so he hopped right in. It was a great way to end the afternoon.