I hope everyone is hanging in there with the “new normal.” I want to let you know what I am working on during this time of pandemic and social unrest; and, I am asking for your input. After all, history is made by people. I am just the designated person to record our town history.
Besides the everyday job of the historian, to document the current state of events in our town for posterity, how am I collecting and sharing this history with the community? Actually, I cannot do this job without your help. You are the history of our town.
•I am collecting stories about your experiences during the pandemic and related social concerns of our time. These stories/recollections will be saved for future generations to consider. Most likely, they will eventually be saved digitally on the historian’s part of the town website. Any observations you have are welcome. Just a hint that sometimes a “one or two-liner” conveys the mood of our times very succinctly. (Contact me if you have not saved any of my earlier appeals for doing this.)
•I have been compiling a history book for the past three years, concentrating on “Changes Through Time” in our town. Ogden history books were previously published in 1902, 1967, and 2002. Perhaps you have one, or they are available for loan at the Ogden Farmers’ Library, and the 1902 and 1967 books will hopefully be on the Ogden Historian’s page of the town website soon. The 2002 book is an Arcadia book and available online or in local stores.
•I have asked for community input in the past, and now I have a final plea for help with local (Ogden) photographs, preferably taken between 1967 and 2017, are of very good quality, and that can be used to show the changes in, and heart of our town from 1802 to 2017. (The cut off of 2017 is made specifically to have the book cover time up to the Ogden bicentennial and Spencerport sesquicentennial.)
Chapters of the new book include: Ogden’s First Settlers, Farming to Ag-related Business; Agents of Change and Adaptive Reuse-Communications, technology, transportation and the computer age, and how the community has adapted to change; Town of Ogden, Village of Spencerport, Government, Hamlets and Neighborhoods, and Parks; Churches and cemeteries; Education – schools, museums, alternative education, and libraries; Volunteerism, civic pride, community involvement, pastimes in general; Businesses and Chamber of Commerce.
Contact me at historian@ogdenny.com, or call or text 585-733-4943. I do not do Facebook at this time.
Carol Coburn
Ogden Town Historian
