Recent visitors and workers at the Hatfield Historical Museum
Work continues in Museum -- even on dreary winter days!
While adding previously missing reports to the online Foxfire Finding Aid on Jan. 17, 2017, volunteer Hannah Zahn comes across her OWN Foxfire report from 22 years ago (1995) -- wow! Her topic: Fred McLaughlin Remembers World War II. Want to see if your report is listed, and available for viewing at the Historical Museum? Or see if there's a report about your house or a family member? Check the link below:
foxfire_finding_aid_1982-2000_revjan2017.doc |
Historical Society Treasurer Bryan Nicholas pinch hits as computer tech on Jan. 12, 2017, and adds another 2K RAM to our aging Dell running Windows Vista. Next conundrum: can we upgrade our operating system just a little and keep using our Frostbow Collection Manager 3 database, since we really like it? Or must we migrate to a brand new museum database?
|
Jan. 7, 2017, the first open Sat. of the new year, pulls in our fearless volunteers. From the top: Wayne Schlegel, Marta Bilodeau, Bob Osley, Vivian Kinzler and Wunderley Stauder.
|
Silver and Gold exhibit goes up, 150 Years of Toys comes down!
Sharing family stories
Project begins to restore historic house photos
Local game designers visit museum
The inaugural “Museum & Game Design” outing of the local game design community (centered in Greenfield and Northampton) took place at the Hatfield Historical Museum last week, Jan. 23, 2016. Members of the group include designers, writers, publishers and general enthusiasts of tabletop pen & paper role-playing games, live action role-playing games, video games, parlor games and board games -- including our own Meguey Baker, the museum’s Collections Assistant. Here you see members of the group checking out the medical exhibit (From House Calls to Hoaxes), kitchen tools and the World War II exhibit (Surviving World War II). While not a particularly organized group, Meg says, some portion of the membership gathers at least monthly for coffee and discussion.
Committee checks out fruits of CPA funding
Hatfield's Community Preservation Committee visited the Historical Museum in late October 2014 to see some of the the fruits of the town's funding through its Community Preservation Act grant. Curator Kathie Gow and Collections Asst. Shauna Strattonmeier gave them a behind-the-scenes tour that included a look at the museum database and a dozen or more treasures that have been repaired, conserved and/or archivally protected with funds from the town's Community Preservation Act.
In the photo at left, they are looking at some of the book binding repairs, custom book boxes and document conservation done by Paxton, MA, conservator Daniel Gehnrich on our 17th and
18th century daybooks/ledgers, as well as conservation on our 19th century samplers done by Albany-based textile conservator Sarah Stevens of Zephyr Preservation Studio.
In the photo at left, they are looking at some of the book binding repairs, custom book boxes and document conservation done by Paxton, MA, conservator Daniel Gehnrich on our 17th and
18th century daybooks/ledgers, as well as conservation on our 19th century samplers done by Albany-based textile conservator Sarah Stevens of Zephyr Preservation Studio.
Check out our portraits from Memorial Day Weekend:
Who looks most like a Civil War soldier?
Post-doc visitor from Poland
Dr. Pasieka, visiting from the Institue of Slavic Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, examines some of the the museum's primary sources related to Polish immigration. Here she is reading the 1927-1933 daybook of Dorothy Jandzinski, who graduated from Smith Academy in 1931. Dr. Pasieka came seeking this daybook in March 2014 after reading about it on our Polish Immigration Finding Aid, posted on the Resources page of this website. The Finding Aid was made possible by a grant from Mass Humanities in 2011.
|
Waterman, Esterbrook, Parker and more!
Museum volunteers Marta Bilodeau and Hollington Lee discover a mutual interest in fountain pens and writing instruments and bring their collections to the museum to share in March 2014.
|
Santa Claus letters draw a crowd
Descendants of the Timothy Slattery and Harmon families, from Massachusetts, Florida and Colorado (!) visited the museum in mid-October 2013 to view a collection of letters we received recently as a donation from the Berkshire Historical Society. The ornately decorated letters, dating from the late 1890s to the early 1900s, are written from Santa Claus to young Elsa Slattery, who lived on Pantry Road in North Hatfield.
The letters are currently on display and can be seen Saturday mornings.Thanks to the Slattery/Harmon clan for bringing us scans of Elsa, her family home and more!
The letters are currently on display and can be seen Saturday mornings.Thanks to the Slattery/Harmon clan for bringing us scans of Elsa, her family home and more!
Pediment Press scans our photos...
to be included in a pictorial history book on Hampshire County between the years of 1860 and 1939. Brad Fenison, president of the press, and his wife, came to us for some on-site scanning of Hatfield images in late June 2013. It's a great-looking book with 18 or so photos from Hatfield. You can see a few pages in the book, a joint project with the Daily Hampshire Gazette, HERE, and it's supposed to be available for sale in Novermber 2013.
|
Planning for Smith College reunion, Class of 1969
Rosa Smith and Debby Slavitt, Smith College Class of '69, visited the museum in August 2013 to plan some pre-reunion activities for their 45th Reunion in May 2014. Among several other Valley stops, the schedule will include guided tours of Sophia Smith artifacts in the Historical Museum, Sophia's grave site, the Hatfield Farm Museum, and a narrated stroll by her two houses.If you're from the Class of 1969, get in touch with Rosa, Debby or the Program Committee, so you don't miss these events!
|
Rare books curator examines account book -- from 1687!
Account/day book of Samuel Billings III
Martin Antonetti at right, visited us at the end of February 2013 from Smith College, where he works as curator of rare books in the Mortimer Rare Book Room. (He also directs Smith’s new Book Studies Concentration, writes and lectures on the history of the book, and teaches courses at Smith and at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science). Martin gave us lots of good advice on handling and storing our antique (and in some cases rare) books and documents. Along with Historical Society member Helen Bardwell, here he is examining an account/day book of Hatfield’s Samuel Billings III -- from 1687!
|
Civil War reenactor Stephen Raff visits the Hatfield Library and the museum's Civil War Exhibit as he publicizes the "Battle of the Seven Pines" at Look Park (Aug. 11-12), presented by the 15th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. It sounds like an exciting schedule, complete with battle reenactments, medical tents, a train robbery and even a battle for kids. (If only he could always accompany our Civil War exhibit -- he looks so good there!)
|
Two great-granddaughters of Matt Klocko visit the Polish Immigration Exhibit and try out the large cabbage cutter. Matt emigrated from Poland around 1910 at age 14 (!) and went on to open the Hatfield Market in 1928 and operate it for the next 30 years. (Come see some artifacts of his life in the exhibit.)
|
Washington state comes to Hatfield
A former Hatfield resident, now hailing from Washington state, makes a fall visit to the museum with her Hadley relatives.
Wishing for central air...
With a fan at her back and a slit window at her front, Smith Academy senior Katie Keating tries to stay cool on 90-degree days as she inputs records from the Hill Cemetery from the late 1800s. This was just one of the many jobs Katie worked on as the museum's 2011 summer assistant.
|
Visitors from Connecticut
The day before Fall Festival 2011, we were graced by a visit from New England historical consultant Bill Hosley (formerly chief curator of American Decorative Arts at the Wadsworth Atheneum for 17 years) and his wife Christine Ermenc, director of the Windsor (CT) Historical Society. Check out Bill's Housing History Facebook community page (5 photos). Visitors from Oregon
The long-distance visitor award for June goes to this man and his wife from Ashland, Oregon, who were excited to find some documents relating to their ancestors.
|
Hatfield Historical Society Copyright 2015
.
.