(no subject)
I live for days like today.
You see, I work at the main library at the University of Illinois, which has over 10 million books. I work in an area where we process and do repairs on books heading to our high-density shelving area. We often find a number of strange things in the books, from ink blotters made by the “Orient Coal” company in 1922, to envelopes full of stamps from the sixties, to a filled-out-but-never-sent subscription card for AMERICAN MAGAZINE dated 1940.
One of the most fascinating finds we’ve ever made was a pristine, string-bound, several page marriage certificate dated 1912. Most interesting was that it was from British Columbia. The certificate was found before I started working here, but I thought to myself, “Why don’t I spend a few minutes trying to track down any family that may still be living?”
I never thought I’d have any use for those bizarre genealogical websites, but on that day I did. I tracked down a distant relative on the East coast, living in one of the Carolinas. He was fascinated by the find, and asked if I could mail it to him.
I took proper care in packaging it, using non-acidic archival boards to guarantee that it wouldn’t get beaten up on the way to him. I later received an e-mail that he had received it and one from another relative who had seen it. Both sent their thanks, but I expected that to be the end of it.
Today I got the surprise of being visited by the youngest son of the couple in the certificate. He and his wife are from a town about 30 minutes from here, and though they rarely make even small trips, they came to visit the man who got a mysterious piece of their family’s history and passed it on.
The couple are in their eighties, and it turns out that the man had never known that much about his father, as he had died when the son was quite young. He said that certainly nobody knew that his parents had been inexplicably married in Canada, since all evidence pointed to their having been in Wisconsin their entire lives-well, except for the fact that the groom's father was born in Bohemia in 1848 and had come through the Port of New York, and had sworn off any allegiances to foreign powers (“particularly to the King of Bohemia ", according to a document they showed me a photostatic copy of) and sworn sole allegiance to the United States of America. Having known nothing about the marriage itself, they certainly didn’t know that it had taken place at the “home of the bride’s parents.”
The couple who came to visit me were as kind and polite as could be, and shared that they had both graduated from the University of Illinois in the same year, after having gotten married their junior years. Indeed, the husband had intentionally fallen ½ credit short of graduation, just so he could be in the same graduating class and ceremony as his wife.
I showed them one floor of the 10 stories of bookstacks (which are, indeed, quite huge), and told them how lucky we considered ourselves for having found such a gem in so many books. The husband got goosbumps and shook my hand for the third time, telling me that he said that he and his family were the lucky ones and thought it was fabulous that the marriage certificate had not only been found, but returned to a family who never knew it existed.
I expressed to them that I work here not just because I love books, or because my coworkers are fabulous, but because every day I touch history, and on some particularly wonderful days...history touches back.
benjamin sTone
You see, I work at the main library at the University of Illinois, which has over 10 million books. I work in an area where we process and do repairs on books heading to our high-density shelving area. We often find a number of strange things in the books, from ink blotters made by the “Orient Coal” company in 1922, to envelopes full of stamps from the sixties, to a filled-out-but-never-sent subscription card for AMERICAN MAGAZINE dated 1940.
One of the most fascinating finds we’ve ever made was a pristine, string-bound, several page marriage certificate dated 1912. Most interesting was that it was from British Columbia. The certificate was found before I started working here, but I thought to myself, “Why don’t I spend a few minutes trying to track down any family that may still be living?”
I never thought I’d have any use for those bizarre genealogical websites, but on that day I did. I tracked down a distant relative on the East coast, living in one of the Carolinas. He was fascinated by the find, and asked if I could mail it to him.
I took proper care in packaging it, using non-acidic archival boards to guarantee that it wouldn’t get beaten up on the way to him. I later received an e-mail that he had received it and one from another relative who had seen it. Both sent their thanks, but I expected that to be the end of it.
Today I got the surprise of being visited by the youngest son of the couple in the certificate. He and his wife are from a town about 30 minutes from here, and though they rarely make even small trips, they came to visit the man who got a mysterious piece of their family’s history and passed it on.
The couple are in their eighties, and it turns out that the man had never known that much about his father, as he had died when the son was quite young. He said that certainly nobody knew that his parents had been inexplicably married in Canada, since all evidence pointed to their having been in Wisconsin their entire lives-well, except for the fact that the groom's father was born in Bohemia in 1848 and had come through the Port of New York, and had sworn off any allegiances to foreign powers (“particularly to the King of Bohemia ", according to a document they showed me a photostatic copy of) and sworn sole allegiance to the United States of America. Having known nothing about the marriage itself, they certainly didn’t know that it had taken place at the “home of the bride’s parents.”
The couple who came to visit me were as kind and polite as could be, and shared that they had both graduated from the University of Illinois in the same year, after having gotten married their junior years. Indeed, the husband had intentionally fallen ½ credit short of graduation, just so he could be in the same graduating class and ceremony as his wife.
I showed them one floor of the 10 stories of bookstacks (which are, indeed, quite huge), and told them how lucky we considered ourselves for having found such a gem in so many books. The husband got goosbumps and shook my hand for the third time, telling me that he said that he and his family were the lucky ones and thought it was fabulous that the marriage certificate had not only been found, but returned to a family who never knew it existed.
I expressed to them that I work here not just because I love books, or because my coworkers are fabulous, but because every day I touch history, and on some particularly wonderful days...history touches back.
benjamin sTone