Cemetery walk in the RAIN!

Yes, it rained on us today over at West Lawn. But that didn't keep my spirits down! Almost everyone showed up for the tour anyway, and we all had a good time visiting some of West Lawn's "residents."

The remaining two cemetery walks are now FULL. If you didn't get a chance to sign up, please consider making a reservation for my Soup at Six program "An Armchair Walking Tour of West Lawn." That program will feature several of the gravesites and biographies of people buried at West Lawn, and I will provide you with a map so you can go over and locate the graves yourself, if you'd like!

Discover World mural in the news

There was a wonderful article in today's Repository about Barb Hoskins and the dinosaur mural she painted down in Discover World!

Click here to read all about it!

Barb did an excellent job on the mural -- everyone here is very impressed with it!

Cemetery walks are full

The first 2 cemetery walks I planned for this year are now FULL. As far as I know, there is still room in the September walking tour.

I just got back from the cemetery -- I always go over the day before to make sure I remember where all the graves are that we are visiting. I took my intern Erin over with me and pointed out some of my favorite stones.

There has been quite a bit of vandalism since the last time I was over there, which is really sad.

There were lots of really big markers that had been knocked over and broken, but the one that made me the saddest was the little lamb on Ruth Cogan's stone.

The lamb's name -- "Bootchie" -- is carved into the back of her stone, and was Ruth's beloved pet. Her front arms and paws have been smashed to smithereens. :-(

Here is what she used to look like:





Cemetery vandalism is just a senseless crime. I can't even get my mind around why someone would even want to vandalize a cemetery. It is just so tragic and sad.

Whew! Paperwork complete!

I just finished preparing Deeds of Gift for new donations. I bet someone will walk in the door this afternoon with something to donate, just because my paperwork is all done and up to date!

I do paperwork in batches, so I wait until I have at least 10 to do. Then I crank them out like an assembly line.

We've gotten some neat stuff lately:

• McKinley campaign ribbon and badge
• phonograph, made by T.H. DePew in Canton
• Cookies Keyless Door Lock in original packaging, made in Massillon
• World War I Navy uniform
• beaded handbag

There are always interesting things passing through this office!

Migratory Bird Day

Just finished making some adorable robin cross stitch designs for Migratory Bird Day this Saturday! (MOMS GET IN FREE for the entire day too!)

I bought all the materials to make kits for a cross stitch station, with a bird theme. I got the pattern from birdcrossstitch.com, which is a site for simple, free cross stitch patterns.

I made one with a hoop frame, and one with a fringed edge. For beginners, I wrote the pattern directly on the fabric. I left some blank for people who wanted to do counted cross stitch instead.

I normally choose very complicated projects that take me months to do. So being able to complete a cross stitch project in 15 minutes flat was a rare treat for me!!

13327

Do you know what that number means?

It's how many photos have been added to the database of the museum's permanent collection in the Photo Documentation Project!!

13327!

Wow. We are almost half way finished with this project.

I have two volunteers who are currently working on taking photos. I spent the past 3 days entering over 600 photos that they had taken over the past few months. (With the bridal show, my trip to CA, the funeral in NY, and putting up an exhibit, I really didn't have time to enter all the photos as they took them.)

This is how the project works.

The volunteers go drawer by drawer and shelf by shelf, using a digital camera to photograph each artifact. They write down the number of each artifact on a worksheet, with any important details about the object in case the number is incorrect (usually the writing is illegible, not an incorrect number -- but either way, I have to be a detective to try to figure out what the number should be).

They turn the photos and worksheets in to me, and I enter each one of them into our database. If I have a problem with a record, I circle it and give it back to the volunteer, and they get it out so I can actually look at it to try to figure out what its number is. I try to search all combinations I can think of to save them the time of getting it out, but sometimes I just have to see it.

For example, I might try a "3" where they wrote an "8" or something like that. Or I might search for a keyword that they wrote down, like "Made in China," and cross reference it with the home location.

This is all kinda complicated. And time consuming.

But our goal is to have every single item in the collection photographed. It will be very helpful when doing exhibitions, because we will be able to see what we're looking for in storage, and possibly rule something out without bothering to hunt it down, if we have a photo to look at. We can also document any damage that might have occurred, such as a tear, chip, crack, etc. We can take multiple photos of the same artifact, which means we can attach a photo of a plate's maker's mark, a close-up of the pattern, a close-up of a chip or crack, and an overall photo.

We have been doing this since 2002. I thought it would be a 5 year project!

Guess not.

Cemetery exhibits in the newspaper

A big THANK YOU again to Gary Brown at The Repository for writing a wonderful article about the cemetery exhibits that opened in the Keller Gallery on Friday night!!

Click here to read all about it!

There are lots of photos to look at, plus a listing of all the related events we have planned in the coming months.

Thanks Gary!!!