Do you know where your high school yearbook is? When your grandson asks what you did in high school, do you have photos to show him?
More and more, as people get older, they become interested in revisiting their past. Local historical societies are well-equipped to serve these folks and provide them with hours of enjoyable reminiscing.
Your town, no doubt, has an historical society and if you haven’t made contact with them, I urge you to do so. Most of them are listed in the phone books and there are many places on the Internet where you can find out the hours they are open, phone numbers and in some cases a whole lot of information.
I’m very familiar with the historical society in my hometown, Windham, as I’ve been a member since 1987 and volunteer as historian/curator.
To help people visit the past, we have nearly every high school yearbook (the Windonian) since they started. Early ones have no photos, but they do have a lot of literary content. Especially in the summer, visitors to their hometown stop by to show their children and grandchildren the old books as well as some of the hundreds of photos the society has acquired.
As the town evolves from rural to suburban, many newcomers to Windham are also interested in “what used to be” where they live. Their subdivision may contain dozens of homes and residents are amazed to view what their neighborhood once looked like. In many cases, they may have come to the Lakes Region for summer camp and can refresh their memories about those days by visiting the archives of the society.
Most historical societies have collections of memorabilia pertaining to wars, weather events (floods, hurricanes, storms) as well as old-time clothing. Often a person will stop by the society to take a look at, or show someone, an ancestor’s wedding dress or gloves or hats. They recall their youth when they view the collections displayed in the glass cases and see old fishing reels, tools from another time, or skates that went on over shoes.
People who are writing about (or trying to remember) something which happened long ago, find the dozens of scrapbooks of newspaper clippings helpful in their research.
A couple of years ago, Windham’s Historical Society was visited by a group of eight or 10 adults of various ages. They had come to Windham from all over the country to attend a memorial service for a common ancestor, whose family had lived in Windham for many years. He had graduated from Windham High School in the early 1900s. These descendants wanted to see if we had any pictures of him. We had many, but the ones which were the most surprising were those of him in his basketball uniform, and the swim team pictures. We made a lot of photocopies that day and I’m sure there were lots of stories to tell when the visitors returned home.
Recently, we’ve been given a big box of slides of Windham Girl Scout activities over many years. If readers were ever in Edith Bell’s group, they might find these of interest. You never know what you might find at the historical society.
During these times of high gas prices, a visit to your local historical society might be an enjoyable trip worth taking.
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