#734 Getting there

Getting there is half the fun!

When you travel from North America to another continent, you have two options for travel: flying on an airplane or sailing on a ship. 

We choose sailing for lots of reasons.

1) Since we don't leave the surface of the Earth when sailing, we have the opportunity to understand better where we are by slowly approaching a new destination at 20 mph rather than zooming overhead at 500 mph and dropping in from the heavens.

2) The ocean is beautiful. The sun on the ocean is beautiful. The moon on the ocean is beautiful.  

3) The ship has a library! And the Queen Mary 2 library, the largest at sea, has just the right books to get our attention: Dear Mrs. Bird and Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society for me and The Art of Cartographics for Kelly.  The librarians even check them out for reading on the deck.

4) And then, there's the people factor.  Those who make the deliberate choice to travel at 20 mph are not in a hurry.  They like to promenade around the deck, read in the deck chair, take time for a conversation.  These are my people.  On our recent Atlantic crossing, we were overjoyed to be joined by two lifetime friends. And when those friends introduce us to their two friends, we form immediate connections and the crossing (and life) become even sweeter.      

Yours in sticking to the surface of the planet whenever possible,
Mary Jo

P.S. I haven't even mentioned the dancers.

#729 Lewis and Kate

When we purchased our bungalow in 2009, we immediately started researching its history.  We've learned so much since then due to the truly wonderful research tools at our disposal:

• Aurora Advertiser, microfilmed copies of our local newspaper housed in the Mount Vernon public library
• Aurora Historical Society, its collections, and its collective memory 
• Census records in Ancestry.com
• eBay and its numerous Aurora postcards by phenomenal photographer R.E. Hinchey
• Facebook groups familiar with the house and its previous owners
• FindaGrave.com
• Google Maps with its historic street views
• a Hairstylist who knows the locals
• another Hairstylist who knows the locals
• House owners and family of house owners
• Lawrence County Historical Society
• Lawrence County recorder office  
• Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps housed at University of Missouri and Library of Congress
• Yale University's Beinecke Library and its preserved and digitized copy of Hinchey's 1907 Aurora, Lawrence County, Missouri book of photos

Our most recent discoveries are the photos of Lewis Shaw Coleman and Mary Kate Miller Coleman.  This young couple has captured our imaginations for years because while still in their 20s, Lewis and Kate built an architecturally unique airplane bungalow in small-town Aurora. We have been most eager to lay our eyes on their faces and thanks to the work of the Aurora Historical Society, we are thrilled to digitally hold these images in our house history collection.  

Lewis Shaw Coleman

Mary Kate Miller Coleman

We very much appreciate many library and archival institutions for the good work they do.  And we are especially grateful for those small-town organizations all around the country, such as the Aurora Historical Society and the Lawrence County Historical Society, for working on shoestring budgets in order to accomplish so much in the collection and preservation of historic documents and artifacts that help us tell our story.

Yours in appreciating the great work of local historical societies,
Mary Jo

#721 Volunteering in Yellowstone

We actually came to Yellowstone to work.

You wouldn't know - based on our previous blog posts - that we spend four days each week volunteering at the Heritage and Research Center.  We walk in these doors about 8:00 each morning...

and spend our morning hours working with the museum collection.

The museum collection includes more than 720,000 items including many cool arrowheads, i.e. late prehistoric points, biface, obsidian.

In the afternoons, we work upstairs with the library and archives collections.

The archives house several million records (manuscripts, photos, maps, oral histories) including the U.S. Army-era records.  The U.S. Army played an early critical role in Yellowstone.  In the 1880s, the Secretary of the Interior called on the Secretary of War to help protect the park and in 1886, Captain Moses Harris and his company of Montana men came to Yellowstone.  My work in the library has been to scan the US Army correspondence from the 1880s and 1890s including letters to/from Captain Moses Harris.

In this letter of 1889, Captain Harris is granted permission by W. F. Vilas, Secretary, Department of the Interior, to allow for the sale of articles that have been coated with minerals from the hot springs. 

The Army would maintain a presence here in Yellowstone until the National Park Service was formed 30 years later in 1916.

In his library work, Kelly is documenting the history of Yellowstone's more than 150 backcountry cabins built beginning in the 19th century.  All were intended to provide shelter to those brave souls patrolling and protecting the park's animals and humans.  Along the way, most of these cabins have been refurbished, rebuilt, renamed, moved, burned, or abandoned to nature several times over. So it's fair to say such documentation becomes a challenge. In fact, Kelly's work is building on a massive effort from previous volunteers and he assures me he will leave plenty of work for future contributors. 

Yours in having fun at work,
Mary Jo

#714 Volunteering in our National Parks

We love to volunteer in our national parks.

When working full time, we would spend two weeks of vacation working in a national park library.  It is a win-win opportunity that provides the library with the help they need and gives us the chance to spend time in a beautiful place. 

In 2000, we volunteered at Rocky Mountain National Park library. (A photo of our work in the library doesn't exist, but I like this one of the Enos Mills cabin.)

In 2002, we volunteered at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore library.

In 2003, we volunteered at the Mount Rainier National Park library.

Life got busy after 2003, but we promised ourselves that we would commit a WHOLE MONTH to a national park when full-time work was behind us. I saved this 2006 article about the Yellowstone Research Library so I wouldn't forget.  We're thrilled to have the opportunity to keep our promise this year at America's first national park and to have my copy of the article signed by the two authors.

Volunteers in Parks are called VIPs and they sure make you feel special.  If you commit to working four days per week for a month during off-season, then Yellowstone will put you up in park housing - just like a VIP.  What a fabulous deal!

Are you interested in becoming a VIP?  Then find out more at Volunteers-In-Parks!

Yours in loving my VIP status,
Mary Jo

#713 Yellowstone reading

When I visited the Air Capital of the World last week, I read The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty, a novel set in Wichita.  I loved the look into the life of Louise Brooks, the airplane industry's impact on Wichita, and the happenings there of the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.   

So now that I'm here in Yellowstone, what novels should I next read?  Lucky for me I'm hanging out with park librarians. 

Jessi is an expert on the fiction books held by the Yellowstone Research Library.  (See Romance in Wonderland.)  So using my new Yellowstone library card, I check out some of the best: Bachelor Father, Letters from Yellowstone, and The Discovery at the Dragon's Mouth.  I'm particularly eager to get lost in the story of hunky Zeke Lonetree, the "independent, loyal, reserved, kind, idealistic" park ranger and hero of Bachelor Father.

Kelly's reading choices today are slightly more, shall I say, fact-based. 

Yours in Yellowstone reading,
Mary Jo

#711 Yellowstone or Bust!

After 1,500 miles in one week, we've arrived in Yellowstone National Park!

Along our route, we visited two Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, two libraries, two art museums, and many hospitable friends.  We saw a handful of tumbleweeds and too-many-to-count hawks, antelope, bison, elk, and mule deer.  (Our trip photos are here.)

My favorite part of the drive was the Wind River Canyon in Wyoming - a scenic canyon made from tectonic plate shifting not carved by the Wind River.

We are now at home in our Yellowstone housing at Mammoth Hot Springs.

This morning, we awoke to more snow and a few bison wandering around the neighborhood.  After Missouri's non-existent winter, we're enjoying the Yellowstone winter and all that comes with that.

Tomorrow, it is back to work for us as we begin volunteering at the Heritage and Research Center in Gardiner.

Yours in transitioning from one cool library (at Crystal Bridges) to another,
Mary Jo

#710 Heigh-Ho Heigh-Ho

Heigh-Ho Heigh-Ho

It's back to work I go.

Since November, I've been working as the interim librarian at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR.

Librarianship has been very good to me - taking me around the world (as in my previous job) or as in this case, opening doors to the world of art.     

The Crystal Bridges library is in an amazing setting on the top floor of a Moshe Safdie-designed masterpiece overlooking the pond created by Crystal Spring.   

Even in winter, the view from my office window is magnificent.   Through my floor-to-ceiling windows, I can see a Frank Lloyd Wright house to the far left, Safdie's museum spaces in the foreground, and the Arkansas woods and water connecting it all.

This is a place where magic happens. 

Yours in enjoying the magic of librarianship,
Mary Jo

#661 Universal Design Ideas @ My Library

We're in need of some universal design ideas.

As we are refurbishing our 1914 home, we want to think about how we will be able to “age in place” using universal design elements such as walk-in showers, level outdoor walkways, ample lighting, and kitchen appliances that eliminate the need to bend. Lucky for us, a few universal design books are just waiting for us on the shelves @ our local library. 

So we walk all the way (about 4 blocks) over to the Aurora Public Library on Mr. Jefferson's street.

 

The lovely folks at the Carnegie Corporation of New York granted $9,000 in March 1913 to construct the Aurora public library for us.

After giving thanks to Andrew Carnegie, we waltz right in, register for a library card, and walk out with just what we need. 

We're just starting to think about how best to design our home. So if you have some favorite universal design ideas to share, please leave it in the comments or contact us!

Yours in scoring big @ my library,
Mary

#648 Kent Curtis papers to UVA

It's a mad dash to the Virginia finish line!

We've only had 7 years here in Virginia and there is so much to do.  During the past 2 weekends, we've made first-time visits to Devil's Backbone Brewing Company, Walton's Mountain Museum, Green Valley Book Fair, and the Frontier Culture Museum.  And we've made return visits to Shenandoah National Park, the Blackfriars Playhouse, and Colleen's Drive-In.  So many fun things.

One Virginia event really stands out.  We've recently donated my family's papers belonging to Kent Curtis to the UVA special collections library.  With the enthusiastic support and guidance provided by Molly Schwartzburg, the delivery has been made and a VIRGO catalog record has already been created.

Boxes filled with Kent's papers

American literature and World War I are real strengths of the library's collections.  And that fits perfectly with Uncle Kent who was an author of boys' adventure stories and a WWI pilot.  The donation includes Kent’s correspondence (about 1000 letters), newspaper clippings, journals, scrapbooks, his publications (journals, books), phonograph records, and photographs. Kent did not achieve personal fame but he knew famous people including F. Scott Fitzgerald.  And their correspondence is included in this donation. 

For me, much research lies ahead.  I'm eager to explore the wide swath Kent left behind and hope to uncover more of his correspondence in archives around the country.  And I look forward to writing more about him on this Uncle Kent Curtis blog. Meanwhile, my family is pleased to have found such a good home here at UVA for this collection that is so important to us.  And I am thrilled that a significant part of our family remains here in Virginia.

Yours in appreciating special collections,
Mary

#628 Rostock libraries

"Bibliotheken rechnen sich nicht, aber sie zahlen sich aus" translates roughly to "libraries do not pay for themselves, but they do pay off."

I learned this when I wandered into the beautiful Rostock stadtbibliothek, aka the Rostock city library.

The Rostock librarian and I bonded when she confided that she, too, visits libraries on her travels. 

In the city park, we came across another special library.  You can take a book.  You can give a book.  You can borrow a book.  

Yours in appreciating libraries at every turn,
Mary

#620 The Newest Usonian

Frank Lloyd Wright died 54 years ago, yet his work is still being built.

Florida Southern College is the site of the most Wright structures ever built for a single client.  For several years, the college has been working on a new Usonian house according to Wright's original plan.  So when it opened in 2013 of course we visited.

Wright designed this Usonian home as faculty housing in 1939, but the plan went unbuilt. The house has three bedrooms and one bath and is constructed of almost 2000 hand-made textile blocks with thousands more gleaming colored-glass inserts. 

This new structure adjoins the main campus where Wright connected his buildings with covered walkways to protect students from the elements while mimicking the regular spacing of the citrus trees covering the original site.

The Wright buildings are all still in use putting it at the top of Forbes' list of most beautiful college campuses...

  

  

  ...and proudly displayed in the school's promotional materials.

The campus boasts Wright's only theater in the round...

 ...and Wright's only planetarium...

 ...and Wright's only water dome. 

Of course our favorite building was Wright's circular library.

Kudos to Florida Southern College for their stewardship and promotion of architectural wonders. 

Yours in Wright appreciation,
Kelly