The Months of May and June have been filled with activities.  We have continued to work at the LBC on Wednesdays.  The book I wrote, Secret Buried, is about an unsolved murder that happened in Springville in 1936.  50% of the proceeds go back to the Historical Society.

I did a book signing in Collins and Ischia, handing out information regarding the town and Village. On May 11^th I did a presentation via Zoom for the Hamburg Middle School, on resources and how to document them.  I included information on what we had available at the Lucy Bensley Center, which could be used when researching and writing up their reports. 

Next, I gave a talk at the Hamburg High School Literary Club on my book, how I researched, wrote, and what it was about.  I also gave out information on the Town of Concord and the Village of Springville.

On the evening of the Art Crawl, we were open at the Lucy Bensley Center and had two pieces of local artisan work, a beautiful carousel horses head, and a wooden carved owl.  I gave the history of the building and town when the 125-plus people came through.  I made contact with a homeschooler group who will be coming back to visit the whole campus. And handed out several applications for folks to join.

We went to the Middle School on June 2^nd, where we shared the town history and information on the Women’s relief corps.  We had maps of the town and books for the students to look through.  It was a fun day for all of us that ended up with the Cannon being fired three times.

Thomas represented the American Legion Concord Post #431 as well as the Historians office by presenting History Awards to the Top candidate from each High School freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior who best exemplified leadership, spirit, and knowledge in their respective class.  Also, three monetary awards of $100.00 each were presented to three seniors for scoring perfect scores on their History Regent Exams.

During the month of June, Thomas worked with four Scouts from Troop 524 with their Citizenship Merit Badges.  Thomas is a merit badge counselor for Citizenship in the Community, Citizenship in the Nation, and Citizenship in the World.  These merit badges are necessary for a Scout’s advancement to Eagle Scout.  Thomas and I are both merit badge counselors for the Genealogy and American Heritage Merit Badges.

Thomas and I have been continuing our efforts to compile a comprehensive list of all veterans from the Town of Concord who served in all wars and their final resting places.  The list includes all POW/MIA/KIA as well as WIA (wounded in action) A list of all Gold Star Mothers and Gold Star Families is also being compiled.  As the newly elected Commander of the American Legion Concord Post #431, he will be advocating recognition of our Gold Star families at our Memorial Day Presentation at the Maplewood Cemetery.

I have been going to the Senior Center once a month to talk to them regarding the history of the area.  Now I am getting people coming and bringing history to share with us. 

On June 10^th we went to the Buffalo & Erie Library where there was a Family History Day.  Three talks were presented, the first one was by Doug Kohler the Erie County Historian, the topic was From Grand Island to Wales; Historian Resources in Erie County.  That talk was followed by Adam Rubin giving us a talk on, Personal Archives and how and what to do with them to help preserve them.  We then got a chance to tour the Grosvenor Room where they explained all of their resources and where they were located the last talk was presented by WNYGS Genealogist Jeanette Sheligo who gave a helpful talk on how to navigate Fultonhistory.com.  We have been invited to have a table there next year when they have this event there. They had several tables set up there including the Western New York Genealogy Society, Buffalo Genealogy Society of the African Diaspora, Buffalo Harbor Museum, Jewish Genealogical Society of Buffalo, Iroquois Genealogy Society, Centro Culturale Italiano Do Buffalo (Italian Cultural Center, and Polish Genealogical Society of New York State (PGSNYS)

During the summer we will be re-arranging the Lucy Bensley Center and trying to get all the documents, photographs, maps, and items from Dave Batterson organized.  The Chamber has dissolved so we will be getting the Historian information and desk in one area and the Historical Society in another.  My goal is to have the bulk of the paper documents organized together by the end of the year.  So please bear with us if you come inside the building and it looks like a hurricane went through.  It is a work in progress.

I still write once-a-week articles for the Springville Journal, and we answer emails as they come in. as well as respond to phone calls.  We have more and more people who are stopping by to see what is inside the building and to talk to us.

I created a notebook with all the information regarding the town murals that the Art Center is doing.  I got all the articles in the newspaper, the rules for the Historical Preservation Committee, the Town and Village Rules, and all the paperwork that the Art Center has turned in so far.  It is available for anyone to sit down and read, so they can make an educated decision.  I hope that I can preserve all of this for the future to look back on.