Big events in April

Hi neighbors. If you have been sitting out the egg hunts, the parties, the family get-togethers and any other social activities, prepare to blow off the cobwebs and get out and about in April.

One of the two up-coming events that I know of and am involved with is the sale and distribution of the two volume set "Nevada & Vernon County's Heritage --1855-2005 Pass It On." When I volunteered to work on the book committee two years ago, I had no idea of the amount of time, expense and effort everyone would donate. Many of the committee members wrote a lot of history articles on local churches, schools, businesses and communities, past and present.

Pat Brophy included a terrific over-view of Vernon County history from 1955 through today. He also came up with part of the title -- Pass It On -- indicating that the heritage of Vernon County continues to be an on-going event.

We all wanted to help people realize that although Vernon County has a rich history, stories about today will be the history for future readers.

Several people worked above and beyond the call of duty to get the information out to the public, help write and collect family stories and do their own research and writing for the business, schools and churches sections.

Committee members Joanne (Thomas) Saathoff and Virginia Johnson submitted many stories. Peggy Pyle and Terry Ramsey contributed lots of hours taking and locating photos, doing research writing articles for the book and helping with organization.

Committee member Elaine Smith passed away while the book was being put together. She had been very active in helping with committee meetings and getting the word out to people to submit stories. I had spoken to Elaine at the committee meeting the night before I left to go to Iowa to visit my daughter. When I returned I saw her obituary in the newspaper. Her cheery nature and hard work attitude had made me think her invincible.

Her sudden passing was very disturbing to me -- I miss her.

High school students in Lois Pendrak's Advanced Hisotry Class helped do research on the area schools. Committee members are too numerous to mention them all here. Each contributed hours and hours of research, interviewing, writing, photo collecting and copying, proofreading, helping to layout pages, and doing the other thousand little things that brought the book together.

All the work and time of putting the book together -- the writing, re-writing, printing, editing, proofreading, research and interviewing was cheerfully done by volunteers.

Keeping everyone involved and organized were committee chairwomen Betty Pitts and Helen Emery. These two ladies handled correspondence, taking the advanced book orders, doing word counts for all the stories submitted, re-writing as needed and dealing with the millions of other unexpected things that had them working long days.

The contents of the two volume set are: early county, townships, early towns, early business, churches, schools, organizations, current county, current business, cemeteries, agriculture, photo gallery, military, families, memorials and dedications. The set is completely indexed -- a researcher's dream come true.

The feeling of intimate connections to history is genuine because the stories were all told by people who had lived them, or grew up hearing, them.

April 2 and 3 the books and submitted photos will be available at the Bushwhacker Museum.

Another big event coming up April 9 is the annual Tri-County Genealogical Society Seminar -- Researching Leaf by Leaf. This year it will be held in the Bushwhacker Museum from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

There are many fine speakers who will be presenting informative and entertaining programs. Terry Ramsey, Bushwhacker Museum coordinator, will speak about researching at county historical societies and museums.

Janice Shultz, librarian at the Mid-Continent Library, will offer tips on library research.

Linda Myers, Missouri State Archives, will explain the information available to researchers at county courthouses.

Ellen Gray Massey, speaker, teacher author of many historical novels and articles will present her program "The Voices of Country Women" based on interviews with real Missouri pioneer families.

I can't wait for April to get here! I hope you get a copy of the book.