Gifts, hazards, and rewards of journalism
Mon, 07/31/2023 - 4:14pm
This week I was able to spend a couple hours in the Waseca County Historical Society’s Bailey House doing research into the archives of the old newspapers for the Pioneer.
Researching the archives is always interesting in my opinion. As someone who appreciates history, it is pretty cool to look back at newspapers from 25, 50, 75, and 100 years ago. It’s such a treat to find the odd little gems in the middle of a newspaper from 1923 or 1948. It’s just fun to think how some of these things that might seem trivial to a modern reader, or that even have no connection to the way life is lived these days, were once regarded as important enough to be in the newspaper. For example, this week’s archives have something about the rising polio cases. We don’t even think about that much anymore.
There was a story about a guy who jumped out of a plane or something onto Clear Lake. Or when I did the archives last time, there was a picture of someone using the ski jump that once stood in Clear Lake. Now, people enjoy skiing, tubing, fishing, or jet skiing. No crazy air exhibits or ski jumps, sadly.
My grandma asked me a couple of weeks ago if I had any interest in typing up my great-grandpa’s journals, something she thought should be done. I said of course I was interested, I would love to go through his journals, something that records his life from the time he was born (His mother wrote them for him at that point).
So she brought out the big box filled with big journals, small journals, and other papers filled with his consistent flow of words. He wrote in his journal every day. Every day! Do you know how difficult it is to do that? The number of times I have told myself that I would do that very thing–record my thoughts every day–makes me laugh. It’s a lot. And yet I still haven’t written in my journal in a while.
I write my journals not for myself some days. I write them, hopefully, for my children, grandchildren, and even possibly great-grandchildren that will someday look at my journals with the same awe and excitement that I look at my ancestor’s journals.
Sure, some may say that there isn’t really a point in reading old journals, but I disagree. I get to learn about this person who was important to someone important to me. I get to learn not only about them but about how life was at that time. It’s incredible. Hopefully someone will someday enjoy reading about all the quirks and fun adventures of my life. I’ve even been keeping physical evidence of my life happenings in there too. Like for my study abroad journal, the number of museum tickets I kept is more than I ever thought I would have.
And then there’s the history records like ancestry and where you can see your family tree. On my other grandma’s side, I have a great-great-grandfather named Mandus that I always thought would be a fun name to name my child one day. I was told recently that his name is actually Amandus, according to a relative’s family tree, although the death certificate says Mandus. It makes no large difference to me, but I find it fascinating that we can double check these things due to the record keeping of death certificates or things such as that. I will forever be grateful for those people preserving history.
My Determination: “But do you know when stories stop being stories? The moment someone begins to believe in them.” – Codringher, The Witcher Saga