History Burgoo

Winter Season Weeks 2 and 3

Well, we had a few holidays so we merged our accomplishments into one blog.  Hope you don't mind.  We have been cataloging like madhatters.  Our microfilm cataloging crew has knocked out 13 counties without knocking out or down each other. Carroll county gave us fits, but check it out online.  We are proud as peacocks!

Carroll County in the Online Catalog

 

Our maunscripts cataloging crew (same group as our microfilming crew) has cataloged over 250 collections.  Among our favorites are the Virginia Louise Hart Memory Book and a recipe book from 1858.  The Memory Book (SC 679) documents the senior year of high school for a young female graduate from Paducah High School, class of 1921.  We have all taken to chanting the senior year cheer:

Hail! Sleet! Thunder! Rain!

Get out of the way of the gravy train!

Hoot! Hoot! Seniors!

The book is full of calling cards, newspaper clippings, play programs and photos, but one page that sticks out as the most colorful showcases scraps of fabric cut from dresses worn by Virginia during her senior year.

 

Another page which earns an award for the most unique and possibly the most romantic highlights the tokens of affection given to Virginia by her male classmates in the form of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum wrappers.

 

 

We are thinking of taking on Virginia's senior class motto as our Seasonal mission statement:

"We build the ladder in which we climb."

 

Another item that had us drooling was the Elmore family recipe book (SC 808).  Besides recipes for several pies and cakes, this slim little volume had a recipe for a wine laud.  We don't know what a laud is used for but the three ingredients melted together are sugar, butter and wine.  Perhaps someone can try this out at their New Year's Eve party and tell us how it turns out!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the staff of the Special Collections and Library. 

Oral History Based Radio Series on Displaced LBL Region

KHS Collection. 1987ph08.77. J.B. Bruce homestead, Eddyville, Ky. Described as: "This old log house is one of the few dwellings entirely within the 55, 000 acre forest preserve of Hillman Land in the 'In Between the Rivers' section of Lyon County." circa 1920. 

I recently heard from author, journalist and oral historian, Constance Alexander (also a member of the Kentucky Oral History Commission, might I add) about the rebroadcast of a radio program based on a western Kentucky oral history series from the late 1990s.

If you are interested to see

a) how oral history can be turned into a meaningful and interesting media broadcast,

b) unique culture and history from the Land Between the Lakes Region of the state or

c) a good way to spend a few hours over the upcoming work week,

then this is something you are going to want to check out.

The original series Connecting People & Place, aired on Murray’s public radio station WKMS-FM, is a documentary radio project celebrating the rich cultural heritage of Between the Rivers in west Kentucky and Tennessee.

Each hour of the rebroadcast combines two of the half-hour segments originally developed by Alexander in 1997-98 as a cooperative project between WKMS and Land Between The Lakes Association with funding from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Oral History Commission. As a part of this oral history project, Alexander conducted more than 60 interviews focusing on the displacement of people who formerly lived in the Between the Rivers region. Between the Rivers is an area of land comprised of roughly 170,000 acres located in parts of Lyon and Trigg Counties of western KY and Stewart County of TN. In 1963, President Kennedy created Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area, eventually displacing hundreds of families living in the Between the regions area. The interviews cover family, community, historical personal narratives along with regional folklore of a place that only exist in the shared memory of a dislocated physical community.

I recommend listening to some of the radio pieces and seeing if the stories being broadcast ring familiar with your own family and community history? If so, maybe it is time to document your own stories – oral history is an easy way to get that started. (Find out how)

The re-broadcast kicks off a celebration of our region’s history in conjunction with Journey Stories, a traveling exhibition form the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street program. With support from the Kentucky Humanities Council, Journey Stories will be on view at Murray State University’s Wrather Museum from January 28 to March 10, 2012. WKMS is seeking personal journey stories from its listeners to broadcast while the exhibition is on view. (CONSIDER PARTICIPTING!) Contact msu.wkms@murraystate.edu by the end of October to participate and receive a keepsake recording as well.

Does anyone have their own memory of this region of the state? Feel free to share comments.

 

--sarah milligan