Godfrey Memorial Library

Five Young Authors Earn Awards

 
 

            It was a capacity crowd of family, teachers, and friends meeting at Godfrey Memorial Library,  Monday May 23, to see this years’  young authors  receive their honors.  Students from schools in Portland, Middletown, Durham and Hebron participated in the library’s Annual Family History Essay Contest. 

Everyone began by reviewing all the essays, then gathered together for refreshments.  Director, James R. Benn spoke briefly and made the presentations, which were followed by photo ops for all the families.  Once all the pictures were done, the staff was available to answer questions about the library, give tours, share genealogy issues, or demonstrate how to use the online catalog to find the records for these new library acquisitions.

            The contest has two levels:  Level 1 for students in the 4^th and 5^th grades; and Level 2 for students in grades 6-8. 

            This year there was only 1 winner in Level 1: Scott Blais (of Middletown),who wrote about “My Pop, Then and Now” referring to Edward P. Faulkner.

            In Level 2 the top honor went to Matthew Garcia (of Hebron) who wrote about “The Journey” of Ernesta Judith Scarfo.  For second place there was a tie:  Grace MacLachlan (of Hebron), writing about  “The Same Old Shillelagh” of Samuel Stevenson; and Jillian Crawford (of Portland) writing about “My Inspiration” referring to Lawrence Stephen Friedman.  The final award went to Jack Caplan (of Marlborough) who wrote about “Carl Caplan’s World War II Letters”.

All participants receive certificates of merit for their efforts and prizes are given for the best essays in each level.   All essays become part of the Library’s collection, each being cataloged and listed in the Godfrey Memorial Library’s Online catalog as well as the OCLC WorldCat (which is a listing of the holdings of libraries world-wide.)  Anyone wishing to look for what holdings the library has, can go to www.godfrey.org and click on the Search tab to find the online catalog, or call the library at 860-346-4375.

            The Godfrey Memorial Library is a library of genealogy and local history and was founded by Fremont Rider in 1947 as a “…free public library of books, pamphlets, periodicals and other materials in the fields of American biography and genealogy and in related fields…”   The Library has continued with its mission of collecting genealogical materials. Its list of titles include a number of genealogies, reference books and indexes, including the 226 volume American Genealogical-Biographical Index (AGBI). AGBI is the largest genealogical reference set ever published.

Bible Project Reunites Family & Long-lost Bible

The Godfrey Memorial Library collects family bibles in order to record the family names included with them. After cataloging and scanning, we try to locate the family to see if they would like the bible returned to them. Family bibles can be lost over time for a variety of reasons, and quite often descendants are quite pleased to have them returned to the family.

The Leonard family bible is one such story with a happy ending. It was donated to the Library in 2010 and after cataloging and scanning the family data, a message was posted on Ancestry.com seeking any family members who might want it back. The bible recorded the marriage of John P. Leonard and Mary A. Renz in San Franscisco, November 1894. It went on to record family births and deaths through 1911, when John P. Leonard died.

The Library was recently contacted by John Leonard, who recognized the names as belonging to his grandfather and grandmother. His nephew, Richard Leonard, happened to be traveling in Connecticut and visited the Godfrey Memorial Library to pick up the bible and reunite it with the Leonard family.