Historical Society doing important work
Today it seems like any bit of information can be pulled up with the press of a button or the click of a mouse. But that’s not true. Much of the history of Butler County has never been digitized.
Instead, the county’s history has to be pulled out of yellowing letters, musty books, microfiche stored in libraries and genealogical societies — or tucked away in the symbols, names and dates on tombstones in out-of-the-way corners of graveyards.
That’s what makes the efforts of the Butler County Historical Society both important and impressive. Its members are always working to uncover the deeds and documents of the county’s founding fathers and mothers.
A recent example was the society’s “Digging Deeper” cemetery tour Sept. 10 at the North Side Cemetery in Butler. [For details, refer to the feature story in the Monday, Sept. 12, edition of the Butler Eagle.]
This tour was completely different from the society’s previous cemetery walks, in which historical reenactors portray historical figures at their gravesides.
Jennifer Ford, executive director, said "Digging Deeper" was more in-depth and focused on three once-prominent families — the Sullivans, Mitchells and Lowrys. These families were the subjects of presentations by Ford, as well as Margaret Hewitt, special collections librarian at the Butler Area Public Library and society board member, and Deb Kruger, history professor at Butler County Community College.
The trio accessed the library's newspaper index of old Butler newspapers to extract information from marriage announcements, estate records and census data to recreate the families’ histories.
And what stories they were! Extracted from the mass of dry data the researchers waded through were a potential legal dynasty killed in its cradle by accident and bad choices; a family line that stretched from before the Civil War snuffed out in the skies over the Pacific during World War II; and a young life cut short by an accidental chloroform overdose.
The women’s efforts brought to light and life events stretching back nearly 200 years. And they showed that obscure should not mean forgotten.
The Butler County Historical Society with its tours, records and stewardship of the Cooper Cabin, Little Red School House and Senator Walter Lowrie House is preserving Butler County’s past.
And, even better, passing it on to new generations.
— EKF
