Historical Society Volunteers Finish Cataloging Objects!

Wow! Last Saturday the team of volunteers from the Historical Society really came together to get a lot done. We started the day with a fairly messy temple/museum and ended with one that is almost ready to be opened to the public! This past Saturday Jerry, Everett, Cyndi, and Jeana finished cataloging all of the 3D objects (872 total overall) while Jed and I did the heavy lifting, organizing and moving - LOTS OF IT!

Before cataloging began.
Objects hung on the wall detracted
from the building's historic significance.

Our goal is to open the museum on Memorial Day Weekend for the summer with a new temporary exhibit. The exhibit includes 30 objects from the Society's collection which help tell the story of the Ligonier community from 1860-1980. The exhibit will be open until the fall when the museum closes its doors for the winter.

The front of the sanctuary will be interpreted to show what the space would have looked like to Jewish worshippers in 1889. We do not have many of the original artifacts from the temple, but we do have the best object of all- the temple itself!

Baum & Son pump organ,
original pew, Union Prayer Book,
and King David stained glass window

The Torah "Ark" with
Hebrew 10 Commandments,
American flag, and bimah (scroll table)

Cleaning and de-cluttering allows visitors to see the walls of the building and celebrate its stained glass windows. Visitors will now be able to feel what it was like to step inside a 19th century synagogue. There's still a lot of work left to be done but luckily, we have a team of dedicated, hard-working volunteers who just happen to love history!

Marathon Cataloging day!

This past Saturday, Jerry, Jeana, Angie, Jed, Cyndi, and I worked to catalog all of section 001 "Jewish community" and part of section 004, "Ligonier Businesses." We impressively finished section 001 before lunch and made great progress on 004 in the afternoon. We still have quite a bit of work to do on 004 as well as several other areas left untouched. First, there is a 15' shelf full of books and scrapbooks that have yet to be cataloged. Second, there are a lot of administrative materials that need to be organized. Thirdly, there are two groups of materials "unknown" and "non-Ligonier history" that need to be sorted and, if necessary, deaccessioned. Finally, there is all the 2D items (paper, photos, letters, etc) that have to be sorted and filed into appropriate archival boxes.

Level One Hebrew Primer

We had a record day on Saturday, cataloging 324 items, bringing our total of cataloged items to 683! Our next workday is Saturday, April 13. Since Everett was unable to join us on Saturday, I must end this post with a highlight from section 001 for him. This is a snapshot of a few pages from an undated Hebrew Primer which would have been used at the Ahavas Sholom Hebrew School. "Where is the dog?" "The dog is under the table." "Where is the cat?" "The cat is on the chair." While we tend to focus on the well-known influential Jews in Ligonier like Solomon Mier and Jacob Straus, this primer is a reminder that it was truly a community, and yes, that includes kids! 

Four down, two to go!

Saturday marked our fourth (out of six total) workshops at the Ligonier Historical Society. Many, many thanks to Jerry, Jeana and Everett who worked with me to catalog sections 003 (Ligonier Government) and 005 (Ligonier Schools). We cataloged 192 three-dimensional objects and finished both of these sections! We have two sections left: 001 (Jewish community) and 004 (Ligonier businesses). As expected, we ran into some items which needed to be moved to other categories, and some items which we felt did not help tell the story of Ligonier's history. Around noon, Kurt Garner, an architect who specializes in Historic Preservation, met with us to discuss a report that we need to compile in order to apply for an NEH grant this summer. This report will be funded by the grant we received from Indiana Landmarks last year. 

Mr. Whiz looks a bit sleepy!

When we finish cataloging all of the three-dimensional objects, we will move on to the micro-work. The micro-work includes moving through each of the sections again with the two-dimensional items like photographs, newspaper clippings, letters, and other paper. These will be separated into folders and then organized into archival boxes. More updates on this later, but for now, a highlight from our work on section 005, Ligonier Schools: the cover of the 1960 Ligonier "Lance" yearbook featuring "Mr. Whiz!"

Cataloging begins!

A big round of applause for Jerry, Everett and Cyndi who all worked really hard on Saturday with our first day of cataloging. I purchased some archival tags and labels and we began with assigning and affixing numbers to all the 3-dimensional objects in category #2 (Ligonier People). This was no easy task... there were 166 objects! All of the 2-dimensional items (photos, newspaper clippings, and other paper) will be organized later, put into folders, and then the folders will be compiled into archival boxes. These boxes will then have numbers. We started a simple spreadsheet which we will later flow into the collections management software once it's up and running on a server. 

During this process, we found objects that weren't related to Ligonier's history, objects that were "unknown" and objects that fell into other categories. We did catalog some pretty interesting things. One item of note was the ballot box pictured here. It had white marbles and black cubes inside. This was used by the Stansbury Woman's relief core to anonymously vote on who was "in" (white marble) and who was "out" (black cube). The ballot box was donated by Eleanor Steller on June 1, 1992 and it proudly bears the new object number of: 2013.002.100!

Genealogical Query: Chester V. Joseph

Minute book housed at the AJA

This week I received an email from the Noble County Genealogical Society regarding a researcher looking for Chester V. Joseph. Apparently, Mr. Joseph was born in Indianapolis and was married in Ligonier. It was her hope that she could track down some records of Mr. Joseph in Ligonier. 

Last year I travelled to the American Jewish Archives (AJA) in Cincinnati to look at the Ahavas Sholom minutes book which is held in their collection. I photographed all 141 pages which are hand written and quite difficult to read. Needless to say, as a volunteer, I haven't gone through the whole book. However, it is accessible at any time at the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati. http://americanjewisharchives.org/catalog/Record/vtls000027055

I took a look at "The Jews of Ligonier: An American Experience" by Lois Fields Schwartz  (published 1978) which lists who is buried in the cemetery. There are no Josephs listed there. I also took a look at "Intimate Circles: Nineteenth-Century German Jewish Immigrants in Northeastern Indiana" by Judith Saul Stix (published 1989) Stix recorded marriages in Ligonier between 1859-1899. There were no Josephs listed there.

As an aside, I recommended she check out wedding newspaper announcements for the year the Josephs were married in Ligonier. I will continue to think about other resources to consult.  

First work day: success!

Jerry, Jeana, Everett, Angie, Ann and I worked for a good part of Saturday organizing the historical society's collections inside the Ahavas Sholom temple. We started out with a short overview, from the American Association (Alliance) of Museums, on the importance of organizing, cataloging, and registering the collections for future generations. Basically, without information about the objects and knowing what their significance is, many objects have minimal historical value.

With this first pass at organizing, we sorted the objects into the following categories: Jewish community, Ligonier people, City of Ligonier, businesses in Ligonier, Ligonier area schools, non-Ligonier history, and "unknown". Our biggest obstacle was staying on-task! It was very tempting to sit and read the very ledgers, letters, and books we were supposed to be sorting!

Regardless of this temptation, we got a LOT done. I think we should be able to organize all the collections during our next work day (December 15) and begin registering the objects with unique numbers! Many thanks to all the volunteers!

Temple volunteers to organize museum collections

Our project team has agreed on the following Saturdays to get together for all-day organization workshops at Ahavas Sholom. We plan to sift through and organize all the objects and papers in the collections and catalog them in a simple and accessible way. Our methods will employ both archival as well as museum collections cataloging best practices with our goal of implementing a digital cataloging system in the near future. Finally, all the graduate classes I took at The George Washington University on collections management and registration will pay off!  

Workshop Saturdays:

November 10, 2012

December 15, 2012

January 19, 2013

February 16, 2013

March 23, 2013

April 13, 2013