WOW! Sitting here in my hotel room this morning thinking back over yesterday I have to say the winners yesterday were Mark & I. What a great day we had at the Elkhart public library.
After leaving home around 7 or so yesterday we made a nice leisurely drive from the Detroit area down to Elkhart. For the most part a pretty drive, biggest issue was of course the traffic in the metro area.
We arrived at the Elkhart public library around 10:30 yesterday morning! To our surprise they knew we were coming - and because I am mentioning them again today, they'll probably get this again. I must admit I was impressed. I can't begin to say enough nice things about the library & staff at this library.
Friendly, accomendating and helpful -- what more can a genealogist ask for from a genealogy department in a public library? Dan & Jeanine went above & beyond the call of duty, providing us with the films & materials we needed to make our visit a success. The machine we were on worked like a charm. We never ran out of paper or films to view. The library was clean, even the other people using the library were courteous, not on cell phones, children weren't tearing the place down - it was just a really nice atmosphere to research in.
That said I did end up with 98 obituaries from their newspaper, The Elkhart Truth. I got every obituary I went there for and a few extra! After doing some research there, we went to dinner, and visited a few cemeteries. Now that's a surprise eh?
It was like emptying your halloween treat bag when you are a kid! Remember coming home from trick or treating and dumping your bag in the middle of the floor to check out all the good stuff you scored? That was sort of how it was here. The obits stacked in the middle of the bed, and me going thru them. Savoring every little detail. Many of those on these obits I did not have burial locations for, some I did not have spouses or children on. So yes, it was a good day yesterday!
Today's mission is to find the headstones of those whose obituaries we got yesterday and photograph them for our files. The desk clerk, Debbie, here at the hotel gave us a full list of all the cemeteries in this county along with the locations - so we are defintely loving the staff at this hotel as well!
Dan & Jeanine if you get this - thanks for helping start our research vacation on a very positive note!
1 comment:
Karen, I concur with your assessment of the folks in the genealogy department at the Elkhart Library. It has been a while since I was there but they were always very helpful. I need to go back sometime as I have over 100 obituaries to look up!
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