The beautiful stone arch in Hayes Arboretum on the west side of the park and visible from Elks Country Club Road is one of those little mysteries around Richmond. The arch…
A recent request to the reference team at MRL led to a woman I had forgotten about but who frequently was seen around Richmond in the past – Ethel Gibson, AKA…
Richmond in 1916 celebrated 300 years since the Bard’s death with an all-day sampling of his works. As the cover states, it was “Presented by ALL OF RICHMOND for ALL OF RICHMOND” and…
“…co-owner of a shoe store” read a small section of the obituary, but, as many of us know, there is often much more to a story than meets the eye. Violet…
Part IV – Clothing the Family Among the many responsibilities an Indiana pioneer woman had, one of the most continuous, next to feeding her growing family, was keeping them clothed. Clothing…
Part III – Health and Childbirth For a woman in early Indiana, childbirth was a very real part of her life. More births were attended by female midwives than male doctors…
Part II – Cooking There can be no argument that the bulk of the household chores on the frontier was the domain of the women and chief among these was the…
Part I – The Frontier Home Life on the frontier of Indiana at the dawn of statehood was not easy for anyone. But the hardships were perhaps especially acute for the…
Since several members of the Local History Team work on the Reference Desk, some of the posts on this blog will be about topics that originated with reference questions. Sometimes,…