All it takes is planning – plus luck plus remembering that we no longer have the luxury of a garage for the car overnight. The snow had pretty much melted but there was so much moisture in the air and it was below freezing that we went out to see that we had a white car and white windows and we were running late for being at the Archives and with one scraper between us (Bill said do not take the scraper we have at Prescott – we probably will not need it in Maine - OK you can stop laughing now!) We set the defroster going full blast but it takes time for the engine to heat up enough to send hot air into the interior of the car and into the defroster……………..so as soon as it looked like we could see out of the front and back window we jumped into the car and drove off to the archives – arrived there about 5 after 8am.
We found that one of the Rozewell external drives has arrived from Salt Lake City and that is exciting. We loaded it into the computer to see what goodies they may have for us, and all it contained was a virus update. At least it did not contain any requests to re-work some of the books. That does not sound like fun at all. I guess we are so paranoid about getting a re-work order that Bill was stressing out over the bleed through from the previous page to the one we were digitizing. I tried to explain to him that we would not get a re-work if the main problem was bleed through because there is nothing we can do about that but he stressed out anyway. At this rate, he will go home either totally bald or completely white haired. It is not worth aging so suddenly for a bleed through problem.
At lunch we eat at the same time as Nina and Ann. It is a delight to talk to these two ladies. Today they were asking about Australia and I told them about eating Kangaroo Tail Soup. They were amazed. I did not tell them that I ate it on Quantas Airlines on my way to Hawaii in 1966. My dad never went hunting Kangaroos so we never had ‘Roo meat to eat at home. I did tell them about the man from Holsopple Pennsylvania who complained in the local paper about the “Australians killing off their national animal” but the thing he did not know is that there are times that it is declared open season in an attempt to cull the herds much like they cull the herd of Deer in Pennsylvania during the winter because if they did not do that, the deer would starve to death due to not enough food. When the Kangaroo mobs get to be more than the land can support, they declare open season. Culling the herds is better than the kangaroos starving to death due to lack of forage. It is my guess that the man from Holsopple has not been further west than Pittsburgh and no further east than to Harrisburg. Lets face it, Holsopple is not a bustling burgh but rather a collection of clapboard homes and a few pubs and a few dogs and if you blink when you drive through it, you will miss is.
One would think that the Archives would not be a well attended place but it is. The sign in sheet is filled every day. They stress that the important date to remember is 1892 because that is when the state began to keep better records for the vital statistics. They do have records dating back to the 17th century. Before 1892, records were kept at the town level and the information on the records was generally sparse. However, for some people any record is better than none and any mention of the ancestor is very welcome, especially if one has been searching for that person for a long time.
I took my recipe book from the Universalist Unitarian church and it was a hit with the staff. Ann knows the artist who did the still life paintings for the book and Nina knows many of the people who contributed recipes. I think it was a wonderful time for all and Jeff even copied the recipe for Moroccan Carrot soup because he spent time in Morocco when he was in the military. I guess today was recipe day because Art came in and told us of his special recipe for pot roast. He seemed pretty proud of his cooking abilities.
I went walking this afternoon on the northern part of our street. I cannot believe the number of objects that are on the side of the road – it looks like parts of people’s cars just fall off here and there and they litter the road way. While I was walking, in my mind I was reviewing the Sunday School lesson I am to present on this coming Sunday. The lesson is on Eternal Marriage which is a doctrine peculiar to our church and performed in the temple. The marriage bond when performed in the Temple seals both husband and wife together for time and all eternity. This is made possible due to the Atonement made by Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and the atonement takes a lifetime to begin to understand. In the class I have some members of the church, some people who are investigating the church doctrines in preparation for being baptized and we also have some people who just cannot make up their mind if this church and its doctrines are for them. My job is not to convince them of anything – they have to search out the truth and make up their own minds. I have some older people and some just barely out of their teens and it is hard to gear a lesson to accommodate all comers. So, I just have to present the concepts ‘as is’ and leave it up to the class members to listen or not. Forgiveness is what we all seek and through the atonement we can receive forgiveness, and first we need to forgive in order to receive forgiveness. Faith in the Atonement of Christ precedes the miracle of forgiveness. Our goal in life is to so live that we can be counted worthy to enter the temple and there participate in the blessings it offers to our lives. Further, Verse 12 in the book of Alma chapter 7, it states “And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people: and he will take upon him their infirmities that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities. Verse 13 Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.” So the atonement takes over in helping all persons become clean to enter the temple. For many people, to be free of their sins and transgressions, it is a long and arduous road, but once accomplished, they can enter the temple and participate in the blessing of eternal marriage. I just hope that I can get this message across to them but not knowing what level of understanding they have, it presents a real challenge to me.
The lesson next week is even more difficult. It is on the Law of Chastity. In this day and age this is a concept that is laughed at and ignored completely but it is very much one of the basic laws of the church. I just hope I can to a good job.
At the archives, we have done almost 5,000 images in two days. I guess we are getting more used to the process of the dCam-X camera and system for digitizing. I am still in awe of the writing in the books and the fact that they are well over 100 years old and still in good shape is testament to the wonderful book-bindng job that was done to keep all the papers together. They do not do such wonderful bookbinding in this day and age. However, I am finding that the paper they are using in these books, circa. 1890-1892 is of poor quality compared with the paper in the earlier books circa. 1830 etc. I can tell this because there is more bleed through from the ink on the other side of the paper. In these present books there are some Rorschach blots…………..fun to think what they could represent.
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