PEACE ON EARTH
Goodwill Among All Humankind

The Poorhouse Story NEWSLETTER   12/15/2001 (Thirteenth issue)

Well, since the last newsletter went out on September 3rd ... I guess that staying an honest woman would require changing the description to quarterly ! (Or what is it called when a newsletter comes out only 3 times a year? A tertiarly?)  Sheesh.  Instead,  I think I will just make a New Year's Resolution to really make an effort to put it out bi-monthly. (And try to forget what usually happens to such resolutions.)

Let's see ... where to start? 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOTE: As usual, you can skip all this talk and scroll down to find the facts about what has been posted to the PHS since the last newsletter.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here I will highlight the major additions or revisions made to the website since the last newsletter. Then I will give you a summary of the speaking tour, "Going to the Poorhouse", below in REFLECTIONS. First,  thanks to the help of my wonderful friend, Brenda Fleming, (again!)...the CEMETERY page has been completely revised and updated. You can view the new page by clicking on the link above. You will need to click REFRESH on your browser if you do not see the big yellow "NEW" arrow up in the upper right corner. (And the page already needs updating again! Which reminds me of the writer Pearl Buck saying what was wrong with housework -- It's like stringing beads on a string with no knot! Sigh.)

Illinois has become the fourth state which we have broken out into separate county pages. Whew!  That was a lot of work. (Personally, I think 102 counties is waaaay too many. But <grin> don't tell them I said that.)

I have finally upgraded from my old dial-up internet service to a cable service ... which is so much faster. Unfortunately that means having to change my e-mail address.  The new address is as follows.  phlady@austin.rr.com   We are in the process of changing the old address all over the website; but that may take some time.  If you will change it in your address book ... that will help.

Finally, I owe profound apologies to the many people who have written me e-mail over the past weeks (and even months!) which has not yet been answered, and to those who have submitted material which has not yet been published. In the last newsletter I described the problem I am having finding time to keep up with all of you. But the old saying is very true.  "The hurryered I go, the behinder I get!!!" I am not ignoring you because I do not value your correspondence. (And I will not get upset if you e-mail me again about some project which I may have left hanging.)

I beg your forgiveness and hope to find a way to catch up in the New Year.

Here's Wishing Wonderful Holidays for You & Your Loved Ones !

Linda ( & Maddie, too )

REFLECTIONS

What a year! The highs have been so high; and the lows have been, as Mayor Giuliani said, almost beyond bearing. I still don't quite understand why September 11th took me down so far and kept me there so long. While no one I knew personally was hurt at the World Trade Center, it did feel personal. There was a strange coincidence of timing. I had cleared my schedule (no working my "day job") for two full weeks to finally pull my book, Portraits of Poverty, together ... or as my friends were putting it, "get it off your ironing board and into print!" So, September 11th, the second day of that two weeks, found me sitting at my computer, cracking-my-knuckles ready to go, and glancing over the top of the monitor at my TV watching Good Morning America when the first plane hit. I think I sat hypnotized with horror in that same spot for about the next 72 hours. (You may have noticed the banner we placed at the top of the website that week.) That next Saturday had been planned for a birthday party for my two adult children; so we disciplined ourselves to keep the television turned off and tried our best to remember that we did have life to celebrate. And fear to overcome.

That sort of broke the totally sad spell and I went into a kind of automaton mode and did manage to edit and print all the masters of the different program documents that comprised the various sections of the book. It went to the printer on schedule and I had the first few copies to take with me on the tour in November. But I think the book will always remind me of that terrible time.

Looking forward to "Going to the Poorhouse" ... well, not literally! ... the speaking tour scheduled to start at the beginning of November was really exciting. And the trip turned out to be all that I had hoped and even a great deal better. I had hoped to provide you with a scrapbook page and photo album of the trip but, since this newsletter really needs to go out now, I will have to wait and put that in the next letter. [Well, here is a tiny sneak preview: a photo story about visiting the Town Historian for Onondaga NY.] 

And here is what was one of the things I enjoyed most!

Watch out for the glare of the glasses!

Here I had the opportunity to publicly thank (with flowers! of course) Doris McEachron, who was for many, many years the Washington County (NY) Historian ... for having insisted on the preservation of the poorhouse records ... where I finally found my great-great-grandma Emma! That's Doris on the right, with Loretta Bates (a really, really dedicated volunteer in their County Historian's office) on the left, and me in my 1850s Irish immigrant PHL costume.

It was great to meet with so many folks who have their own passion for poorhouse research and the preservation of poorhouse history and records. Their hospitality was greatly appreciated. The number of people who attended the presentations (in Warren, Ohio; New Paltz, NY; Goshen, NY; and Saratoga Springs, NY) totaled about 300.  Local experts in records preservation very generously shared information which I will be sharing with you over the next weeks and months. Walking around cemeteries, visiting the old buildings, and even handling the original documents (achoo! mold allergies, sigh) made the poorhouse experience much more real than simply reading about it. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to do all of that. And I hope to be able to do it again a couple of times next year.

We published the full NAME INDEX (all 1600+ !!) for my new book,

History & Abstracts of Inmate Registration Certificates
From the Washington County (NY) Poorhouse 1875-1900

We also placed this on our History page.

FEATURED ARTICLES
(We didn’t create them; 
we just show them!)

This is an excellent work!             >>>>>>>
It would be wonderful to have a lot more such work for other areas of the country done like this!

A GREAT Website!      >>>>>>

       ANOTHER Great Website!   >>>>>

The Precinct Book  (ISBN 0-9703767-0-7) by Mike Troy        
is a transcription of the account book of the Overseers of the Poor for the Southeast Precinct of Dutchess County, NY [now in Putnam County], 1768 to 1812. See Review by PHL

  No new items.

Bradford / Cambria / Jefferson / Schuylkill / York

Almshouse Admission Records    1855 - 1979  (Including Building Photograph)

Almshouse Burial Permits   1911 - 1933

Almshouse Reports of Death   1906 - 1930

Return to ARCHIVED NEWSLETTERS                       HOME