Godfrey Memorial Library

Families Shared

June 9, 2010 

 

 

Families Shared

Godfrey Memorial Library Recognizes New Young Essayists

 

     Family stories were the order of the day as Godfrey Memorial Library celebrated the authors in its Annual Family History Essay Contest, Monday June 8, 2010.  Students from four towns, (Durham, Portland, East Hampton and Hebron) entered essays which shared stories of the special people in their families.  Each essay must have some exhibit with it, many choosing to have photographs, but some did hand drawn art work or maps.  Many of the authors brought  the subjects of their essays to the party.

There are two levels in the contest:  Level 1 for grades 4 and 5; and Level 2 for grades 6-8.  A panel of judges read all the essays from each level and, using a scale of 1-5 rated all the elements of the essays.  The total scores determined three top 3 winners in each group.  All participants receive certificates of achievement, but the top 3 in each group received prizes:  cameras, art sets, scrapbooking kits.

The top winner in the first level – grades 4 and 5 – was  Caroline J. Thompson from Gildersleeve School in Portland.  Second prize went to Aubrey Figoras of The John Lyman School of Durham.   John Herbert Mosley VI from Gildersleeve School in Portland, won third prize.

    In level two – grades 6 through 8 – the top winner was Taylor Muncy of the East Hampton Middle School in East Hampton.  Second prize went to Kylie Flanagan of the RHAM Middle School in Hebron. Annie MacLachlan of the RHAM Middle School of Hebron won third prize.

Every essay becomes part of the permanent collection of the Godfrey Memorial Library.  Each is 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 all over the world.)  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.

 

 

All the Attendees:

Caroline J. Thompson, John Herbert Mosley VI, Nathan Fecteau, Colby Townsend,

Aubrey Figoras, David Halsey Mann, Jr., Michael Olayos, Taylor Muncy, Grace Pelletier, Kylie Flanagan, Annie MacLachlan

 The Top Six: 

Aubrey Figoras, Annie MacLachlan, John Herbert Mosley, VI, Kylie Flanagan, Caroline J. Thompson, Taylor Muncy.
  

Photocopies of Vital Records from the Barbour Collection

Have you ever wanted to have copies of just the pages of the Barbour collection that pertained to your town? Here is your chance! We have copies of the Barbour collection (all loose pages, unbound), separated out by towns, available for sale for a nominal fee. View available pages at www.godfrey.org/barbour.pdf.  Call or email for your set today! They won't last long!

Godfrey Online Adds Chicago's Historic 1864-65 City Directory!

The 1864-65 Chicago City Directory is one of the most notable in the history of Chicago. The last census taken of the city prior to publication occurred in 1864 and, when compared to the prior census of 1862, showed an explosive increase in the city's population. It is estimated that during the previous five year period, the population nearly doubled in size. More than 11,000 names were added to this directory since the previous year's directory was printed.

Godfrey Memorial Library is pleased to be able to offer you free access to this historical gem for a limited time. Access can be had through the Search tab>Search Free page, as well as inside the portal for our subscribers, in both the Unique Resources folder and the Directories folder. 

The size of this book required us to break it down into sections in order that it might be better able to download quickly. (Still, some of the files are large, so we recommend patience when downloading.) Just click on the link for the directory, this will take you to an introduction page similar to this. Scroll down and click on the section you wish to view from the menu, it will open in a new window and load for display using your Adobe Acrobat Reader.

As you may know, Adobe offers a search or find function. Names or keywords can be entered in the find box and searched in this way. Any occurrences of these words will be highlighted in blue. This is made possible through a process known as OCR (optical character recognition). OCR is far from 100% accurate in its interpretation of characters and really is only as good as the image on the page. Our hope is that the OCR as it stands will help you to hone in on your name/word and make it a little easier than reading page by page even if it doesn't pick up the exact word you entered.

Our copy of this directory was rebound a few years ago. In the process, much of the center gutter space was lost. As we digitized the images, every effort was made to get as much of the image possible without doing damage to the new binding. We felt the value of the directory as it exists here was well worth the effort, however imperfect the result, to bring this data to the public.

Not All Members of the Smucker Family Make Jam

Have you seen the Smucker advertisement on television with two boys walking along and one asks the other why no one asks what he wants to be when he grows up? The second boy says it the name. "Richard?" the first boy asks. "No, Smucker" the second replies. Godfrey Library has the 1982 Orrville OH city directory, so we decided to check, even though this conversation was supposed to have taken place in the 1950's.

In 1982 Paul H. Smucker was Chief Executive Officer of the J.M. Smucker Company in Orrville, Timothy P. Smucker was Chief Operating Officer and R. Kim Smucker was Executive Vice President and Treasurer. Paul lived in Orrville, but the other two did not.

What about the other members of the Smucker family? Aaron Smucker was a stock clerk at Orlo Auto Parts. Bruce L. Smucker and his wife Linda lived in Orrville where he was a general yard foreman at the Koppers Company. David Smucker lived on Smucker Road in Smithville and worked for the Smith Dairy Products Company. Frederick Smucker and his wife Marie, who was retired, lived in Orrville where he was a broker for the Green Valley Realty Company. Marion P. Smucker and his wife Mabel were retired. Ralph M. Smucker and his wife Lila lived in Smithville and he was an agent for Nationwide Insurance.

Richard Smucker was not in the directory. So much for advertising.