newsletter_2007_11

Christmas Open House

Our Christmas open house on Sunday, December 2, from 1:00-4:00, will be a part of Ripon’s annual Dickens of a Christmas weekend celebration. Pickard House will be decorated for the holidays, with Joyce Rudolph’s bell collection as the featured display. Come alone or bring family and friends to enjoy the music, refreshments, and festive atmosphere.

Society Receives Grant For Pedrick Scrapbooks

Our Society recently received a $1000 grant to cover the costs of preserving the Pedrick scrapbooks. For over 50 years Samuel Pedrick collected newspaper clippings, letters, pamphlets, and other written materials relevant to the history and development of Ripon and pasted them into law books that were out of date and textbooks he no longer used. The collection contains over 50 volumes. Through age and use many of these old books have deteriorated to the point that they are in danger of disintegration. George Miller and Bill Woolley have screened the documents in the books and marked the most significant to be digitally photographed and reproduced so as to be more accessible and to save the originals from further damage. The grant came from the John Ebert Memorial Fund of the Fond du Lac Foundation, a fund dedicated to aiding local historical societies in Fond du Lac County with major projects such as this. The grant, along with many hours of volunteer work, should cover nearly all the equipment and labor costs in the project.

Annual Dues are Payable in November

An easy way to get your annual dues out of the way is to pay Bill Woolley at the annual meeting ($15.00 family, $10.00 individual, $5 student). If you can’t make the meeting, please send your dues to Treasurer, Ripon Historical Society, PO Box 274, Ripon, WI 54971, as soon as possible. For $100 for an individual or $150 for a couple, you can have a life membership and never have to think about this again! At this time 118 of our 199 members are life members.

In Memoriam

Since this is our last newsletter of 2007, we want to remember our members who died this year, Helen Goodrich, Fern Haensgen, Joyce Schenke, and Alice Stroinski.

Memorial Donations

Since the last newsletter, the Society has received several memorial donations in memory of Fern Haengsen and Joyce Schenke. Many thanks to those who gave. Your gifts are much appreciated.

Summer Interns Worked with Artifact Collection

Ripon College students Parisa DJangi and Bryan Schneider received summer grants to work as interns at the Society. Both are seniors. Parisa is from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and is majoring in history and English. Bryan is from Stevens Point and is majoring in history and economics. They revised the docent room descriptions for the Pickard House kitchen, dining room, and upstairs bedrooms and bath, and the North and middle rooms of the barn. Parisa helped Joyce Rudolph rearrange both the front and back bedrooms of Pickard House. Both interns mended the bindings of some books and improved the storage of rolled documents in the archives.

What Do We Do With Documents in Big and Odd Sizes?

Some important historical documents, such as maps, posters, and rolled items, just don’t fit nicely into files and archival boxes. To solve this problem, Karin Hanisch, a Ripon High School sophomore, with guidance from archivist Nedra Martz, preserved, accessioned, and stored these items in a horizontal flat file made expressly for oversized materials. Karin has been a valued volunteer since 2005 when she worked with Frank Farvour to classify the 7000-piece archeology collection and enter it into a computer database. She completed the project alone after Frank’s death. Karin was a familiar and welcome presence again this summer. With the completion of the flat file, all documents and books in the archives and in the library are now organized and entered into the Society’s PastPerfect computer software and in the Locator File.

Terms Used in the Archives

When you read that article on the flat files, did you wonder what some of the terms meant? Here are some explanations that will help you to know what goes on down in that windowless roomful of history.

Archives: Pickard House is both a museum to house historical “things” (artifacts) and an archive to house historical “paper” (documents). Archivists select, collect, accession, preserve, and store two basic kinds of documents, papers and records. "Papers" are personal documents such as collections of letters or the Pedrick scrapbooks. "Records" are documents related to the functioning of organizations or the city.

Preserved: Documents are kept safe from decomposition through the use of special archival paper, boxes, tapes, etc. and by wearing white cotton gloves.

Accessioned: Museum pieces and archival documents are assigned their own numbers, and the source and description are recorded.

Library: The meeting room in Pickard House serves as the official Society library.

PastPerfect: This computer software program is used by small museums to keep track of their acquisitions, membership, and donor lists.

Locator File: This notebook contains a list of the Society’s archival holdings and their locations and may be used by members and guests to research topics. Interested in finding out about a family, a building, a house, a business? Call 748-5354 for an appointment to have a look in the archives and talk with the archivists, George Miller and Nedra Martz.

Hargrave Family Donates Historic Artifacts

Alan Hargrave, member and lifelong Ripon resident, died last year. He was the last of several generations of Hargrave relatives living in Ripon. His late wife, Dorothy Butler Hargrave, was a Ripon native from a family long associated with the city. After Alan’s death their children, Ann Hargrave Schob and Douglas and John Hargrave, offered the Society some of their memorabilia related to Ripon. We accepted both archival materials and a few examples of the family’s childhood clothing, toys, and household artifacts. Also accepted were a sampling of Civil War artifacts that belonged to Walter O. Hargrave, who enlisted in Company M of the First Regiment Wisconsin Volunteer Cavalry. Because of size (a saddle), duplication, condition, or historic value, some of Alan’s Civil War artifacts have been passed on to the Wisconsin Veterans’ Museum in Madison and the Oshkosh Military Veterans’ Museum. These donations were made with the approval of the family. In the past, the Hargrave family had already donated both artifacts and archival material, including the valuable “Harris Collection.” All of the Hargrave donations are available, by appointment, for viewing or study. The Society is both pleased and grateful to be offered historic treasures from Ripon families, businesses, and organizations

A Tribute to Joyce Schenke

Long-time member Joyce Schenke died in Markesan on September 21, 2007. Sometime in the 1990’s Joyce started volunteering at the Society as a docent time-keeper for our public school tours. Because she and her husband, Russ, had run the successful Ripon Variety Store (known to many children as “The Little Red Store”) on Watson Street and she had also worked in gift shops, we soon discovered her interest in our artifact collection, especially our china and glass table service. When we were preparing for the renovation and addition to Pickard House, she proved to be an excellent packer of our Pickard House dining room collection in spite of her advancing Parkinson’s disease. By the time the renovations were completed, Joyce had moved into American House. However, she was able to continue to volunteer. She just needed transportation, the new handicapped accessible back entrance, and help in moving heavy items. She continued her special task of changing the Pickard House dining room table settings and décor to suit each of the four seasons until about two years ago. She also donated some of her family’s treasured artifacts. We enjoyed her and appreciated her gifts and service. She is missed.

Signs of Spring…On Halloween?

The volunteers who work regularly in the Society’s museum and archives have been watching an interesting development in the front garden. How often do you see iris blooming alongside the mums?

One-room Schools--Fond Memories and Memorabilia

Opal Griffiths and Greta Aberg Share Memories

The recent preservation and reconstruction project at the Little White Schoolhouse has generated a great deal of interest in the one-room schools that once dotted the landscape around Ripon. In response to Arden Gatzke’s article in the last newsletter, we received a letter from Alice Stroinski’s sister, Betty Frankewich, who now lives in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. She went to Round Prairie School south of Ripon. She remembers, “We had the earthen jar with a tap which was filled with water carried in from the near-by farm, the cloak room with the girls at one end—the boys at the other end, Christmas programs with a sheet for a curtain, the outdoor toilets, and the ever-lasting wood box that needed filling.” Every chair was occupied at the Society’s October program, One-room Schools, presented with commentary and a display by member Opal Roeder Griffiths, who was a one-room school teacher in the Ripon area. Several members of the audience had either attended or taught in one-room schools and contributed their own memories. All agreed that their education in this small, cooperative setting had provided excellent academic and life skills.

Annual Meeting, Program, and Chili Supper to be Thursday, November 15, 2007, 5:00 PM

Our annual meeting and election of officers for 2008 will start at 5:00. Following the brief business meeting and election, Michele Benson and Joyce Rudolph will present the history of some of the Ripon families who contributed to the Belle Lawson button collection. This meeting will include a chili supper. The nominating committee (Ann Marie Godfrey, Audrey Conant, and Kent Gallaway) present the following slate:

President
Vice President	Todd Berens
Treasurer	Bill Woolley
Secretary	Shirley Williams

Volunteer Appreciation--Ralph Quinney, Board Member and Handyman of All Seasons

With two old houses and an old barn, maintenance is a big job. We are all thankful for the efforts of Board Member Ralph Quinney. Ralph does many of the tasks himself—small paint jobs, changing to energy-efficient light bulbs, finding organic ways to chase away the powder post beetles in the barn and the weeds in the lawn, and picking up fallen limbs. If special services are required, he does research, finds contractors, and works with them to get the jobs done—complete repainting of Pickard House, re-roofing Lawson House, removing the bats and squirrels from the Lawson House attic, repairing some deteriorating Lawson House grout blocks, dealing with security system issues in Pedrick House, and overseeing the selection and planting of memorial trees. Ralph, we know it’s endless, and we really appreciate all you do.

Match the Clues with the Name

Warren Chase	1	19 men and a boy who set out from Kenosha to establish a Fourierite community
Captain David P. Mapes	2	Name of the community started here on Fourier’s communal social principles
Wisconsin Phalanx	3	Leader of the Fourierite community
Ceresco	4	Built a grist mill on Silver Creek; gave lots to settlers who promised to build businesses; suggested Ripon as the name after his ancestral home, Ripon in Yorkshire, England; a founder and original trustee of the College
Ceres	5	Bought the most stock in Ripon’s new college, so it was originally named for him
William Brockway	6	Roman goddess of agriculture, from whom the name “Ceresco” was derived

Chase 3, Mapes 4, WI Phalanx 1, Ceresco 2, Ceres 6, Brockway 5

Who is this historical Ripon personality?

Here are a few clues—some well known and some obscure--that will identify him.

· He was born in the rural community of Adams in northeastern New York.

· He attended Norwich college, in the mountains of Vermont, where he also received military training.

· He taught mathematics and Languages at several Eastern institutions.

· In 1850 he moved with his family to the new community of 13 houses called Ripon, Wisconsin, where he practiced law.

· He purchased land in the 400 block on Watson St. and began an “addition” to the town.

· His father-in-law’s first name was Ransom.

· He helped to create Ripon College.

· in 1852 he began calling for a new party to form with a platform to stop slavery. He visited New York and discussed the topic with Horace Greeley, the editor of the New York Tribune.

· He called a meeting to be held at the Congregational Church on the evening of February 28, 1854, because of the issue of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would create the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and allow the settlers to decide whether or not to have slavery.

· A resolution was adopted that if the bill would pass, they would "throw old party organizations to the winds and organize a new party on the sole issue of slavery." After Congress passed the controversial bill, another meeting was held the evening of March 20 in a small frame school house where the new party was officially formed .They recommended calling the new party “Republican.”

· He served as a major in the nineteenth Wisconsin volunteer infantry from 1861 to 1865, returning to his Ripon law practice after the war.

· He denounced the Republican Party in 1874, declaring that the mission of the Republican party had ended with the overthrow of slavery and the reconstruction of the old slave states on a free basis. He wanted its place to be taken by a new party with prohibition as its central idea. He became chairman of the first state central committee of the Prohibition party of Wisconsin.

· He died at 85, January 13, 1903, in Santa Monica, California.

Sources: Wikipedia and George Miller Answer: Alvan Earle Bovay (1818-1903)