Preserving Pocahontas News - Sept. 25, 2014
By B.J.
Gudmundsson, Preservation Officer
I was up in Bartow this week to walk around the late
Jessie Powell's property at Travellers' Repose. As most of you know, the
place is going up for auction this weekend and the future of yet another
county historic landmark is very much on our minds.
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I was remembering back to
November of 2010 when a small group of us took Jessie to the Top of
Allegheny. She was 95 at the time, and though it was a sunny day, it was
brisk as November usually is.
We followed her to the Civil
War cemetery, watching as she stopped at every stone. Across the field, up
and down we went. She rarely stopped to rest. Finally reaching the site
where her Yeager ancestors once lived, she told a story of their 500 sugar
maple trees that were cut down during the war to build cabins for the
troops.
"Would you let me take
your picture here?" I asked.
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She sat down on what would have been the steps up to
the old house that existed only in her memory from stories handed down.
Smiling like a child, in her pink coat and white hat, it was as if time
stood still. She had gone back to a time where you and I have never been.
I took a hundred pictures of
Jessie that day. Regretfully, it was the last time that I saw her. Those
pictures were placed in the Preserving Pocahontas archive so that future
generations would remember this chapter of Pocahontas County history that
she was so proud to be a part of.
Preserving the past, in the present, for the
future! That's really what Preserving Pocahontas is all about.
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I mentioned last week that we
are going "on the hunt." And the hunt is for financial support
for Preserving Pocahontas. As much as we depend on your contributions of
photographs, historical documents and so forth, we are always mindful of
how much time and money it takes to maintain this massive archive that we
have built.
For example, our digital images of photographs and
documents must be copied to new hard drives every five years. This is how
we protect them and insure that data will not be lost over time. We now
have thousands of files that are ready to be copied.
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Over the next few weeks I'll
write about our finances, where the money has come from in the past, how it
has been spent and what our future needs are. And I'll try to walk you
through the step-by-step process of archiving a photograph.
Preserving Pocahontas is a
private, nonprofit organization, exempt under section 501c(3) of the IRS
code. As such, gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
To learn more about our
organization, search the archives or make a tax-deductible contribution
through PayPal, visit our website at www.PreservingPocahontas.org.
Contributions may also be mailed to Preserving Pocahontas, 1200 2nd Ave,
Marlinton WV 24954.
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