It's a small world

Hi neighbors. I had an interesting experience while in Iowa. Actually a couple of things near my heart...writing and genealogy! While at the library I met with a member of the Marion County Genealogy Society in their genealogy room. They keep their room locked and although the librarian can let you in, you have to request entrance. As it happened, one of the MCGS members was there and we had a nice chat.

Although I don't have a lot of family ancestors in the Iowa area, there was one branch, offshoot that was in the area in the 1800s.

One of these distant relatives was Wyatt Earp and his family. Although he didn't live there as a man, he spent some of his boyhood there. My link to the Earp family was Wyatt‚s mother, Virginia Cooksey.

Anyway, I thought that thin thread was a good enough excuse (as if I needed one) to visit the genealogy room.

As is often the case, the lady I was speaking with was doing research on some of her families in Missouri. We exchanged emails and promised to help each other out once I got back home to my database.

We discussed our various organizations and found we both learned something from how each society did things.

She lamented that her society was in serious decline with only seven members left of a much larger group.

I told her we (the Tri-County Genealogical Society) held monthly meetings with guest speakers and invited the public to attend. She said they did not do that but would consider it.

One thing I thought they had set up that I'd like to do in our genealogy room at the Nevada public library, is make a list of the family books that have been donated. They had a list of each book and the surnames mentioned in each one. And they had a LOT of family histories! An entire shelf of them.

I'm glad our research room is open to the public. Most users may have limited time to do research and being able to access the genealogy room any time the library is open is a great benefit to them. The Tri-county Genealogical Society has added so many things to the genealogy room within the last year it is really a researcher's dream come true.

It has been being inventoried the last few weeks so things have been a bit helter skelter, but the wait will be worth it. The new shelving system will make everything easier to find.

My daughter had told me a writers‚ group was in town, but she didn't know what day or where they met. I figured if anyone would know about a local writers‚ group, it would be the librarian. I wasn't disappointed. She helped me find the newspaper article my daughter had read and I discovered they were meeting that very night.

Never one to be shy, I called the contact number and asked if I could just sit in on their meeting that evening. They welcomed me with open arms (and lots of coffee!) and I enjoyed a great evening's discussion of writing.

Once again, I discovered how small the world really is when one of the members turned out to be a Cottey graduate who had recently been in Nevada getting her daughter registered to attend Cottey this year.

After last week's column ran, I received an email from a couple in northern Iowa who said they were readers of the on-line version of the newspaper: www.nevadadailymail.com , and Vernon County natives.

The Internet is certainly a wonderful thing, and helps people stay in touch all around the world.

Don't forget to email friends and family as often as possible. And don't forget our service men and women who would enjoy emails from home.

It seems there is always a lot going on in the world, and a lot of what we hear on the news we don‚t like or don't understand. To me it's very comforting to know the world's greatest military stands guard on our homes and families.

Since I travel to Iowa so often, I really appreciate the ability to travel from state to state without fear of being harassed by governmental red tape or held at gunpoint by terrorists.

We have a lot to be thankful for here in America. It hurts none of us to take a few moments now and then to remember those who died in wars past to keep us free. And it takes only a little time to keep in touch with those still fighting today. They are doing their part every day and night. Let's do ours.