Mark’s returned to us!
And right before Ashley and I were planning that giant archive party, too. Shucks.
Work continues on with finding aids and trying to be as thorough as possible in the details. My biggest fear is that I won’t have them filled out with nearly as much information as they need, but I’m working with what I’m able to find so I feel good about that. I think I might be able to give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money, but probably not.
I’m not quite that good at clue hunting yet.
I’ve also started on the World War I Soldiers collection, one I’ve been secretly eyeing for sometime now and I’m happy to report that I wasn’t disappointed. There’s letters and photographs and even an embroidered postcard from France that should probably be in the museum.
I’m not sure I can exactly describe the feeling of sorting through all these things, the items that tell the stories of men who served overseas driving supply trucks and writing letters from the front. It’s a feeling of curiosity about their lives and a reverence for touching something that’s managed to survive and stay intact since the early 1900’s. It’s an interesting feeling — a good one — to know that these little pieces of their lives still exist somewhere beyond their families in a place where others can access and look at these items to gain a better understanding of a soldier’s life during World War I.
Of the soldiers in this collection I recognized Samuel Lane the most, the photographs he took in Europe being ones that I processed while going through the general WWPL photo collection. I was almost glad to see him again in this collection specifically since he was one soldier that had a lot to his name; pictures, letters, service records and special orders.
Back in the spring I started thinking about what kind of subject area I’d ultimately like to deal with and honestly it’s a toss up between World War I and II. There’s incredible soldier stories from both and any archive that has a collection or two is one I wouldn’t mind interning for (again).
