Happy New Year! Hope you had warm and comforting holidays! Thanks to everyone: hosts, volunteers, guests, for participating in the Haven Holiday tour on Dec. 14. It was a great experience.

Wines, Shines and Brews in the Wilds is the new name of our ever-popular Wine in the Wilds, and there is a larger variety of offerings! The date is April 25, 2026. Discounted ($30) pre-sale tickets are available www.wineinthewilds.com.

Our officers and committees have been hard at work preparing events for 2026. Check it out!

From the President’s Desk

— Annual Meeting January 28, 2026: Noon at the Poorman Gallery. Potluck Lunch. Meet by Zoom option.

Election of Officers:

— 3 Year Term ’26-’29: Jo Ann Bowes, Maribeth Long, Larry Ferree, Elaine Miller, Robert Sandow.

— 2 Year Term ’26-’28: Sue Welch, Peg Shaffer

2026 Happenings and Dates to watch for:

— Winter Pottery Exhibit by Local Artist

— Spring Yard Sale

— April 12 Sybil Ludington, Revolutionary War Heroine

— April 25 Wines, Brews and Shines in The Wilds

— May 10 Mothers Tea

— June 14 Visit from the King of the Railroad Hobos

— July 12 Sally Ann Jarrett Story, Heroine of Gettysburg

— July 26 Light Up the Furnace with Van Wagner Story and Song

— Sept. 13 Barton One Room School Days

— Oct. 11 Roadside Research: America 250 Edition by Joby Topper

— Nov. 22 Billy Raymond Readers Theater

— Dec. 13 Holiday Open House

Other dates to watch for: Oldest Buildings in Clinton County Tour, Honoring our Native Americans, Harder Weapons That Won the West, Children’s Programs on Home Life, School and Play long ago.

From the Collection

By Kathy Arndt

Family histories are a large part of our collection. We have three shelves of genealogies. Some are only a few pages long but others are books tracing a family’s history back to its European roots. We also have numerous cassette and VCR tapes from the 1970s and 1980s of oral histories. With the technological advances since then, the information is not easily accessed. The collection also includes eight file drawers of family subject files that contain items such as journals, news articles, genealogies, photos and receipts. Our “oral history” subject files hold submittals by local residents as well as news articles relating the memories of our centenarians who grew up in Clinton County.

Much can be learned about the lives of people in our area from these family files. While knowing that Bill “Billy” Raymond, a black member of the 305th Ambulance Corps, was one of the first to integrate the army during World War I, we at the CCHS had very little information about his time serving during the war. Fred Wadsworth, born in Keating in 1894, wrote of his time with the 305th. The unit trained at Camp Upton in NY, were on a ship to France in March/April 1918 that was unsuccessfully attacked by a German submarine, received further training in Belgium from the British, then were moved to France and were stationed in the Argonne Forest area of France when the armistice was signed Nov. 11, 1918. It was in the Argonne region that members of the unit spent time in the “dugouts” abandoned by the German army. The dugouts were a series of 18×20 foot rooms built 18 feet underground used as living quarters for the German soldiers. The 305th used the rooms to have unit singalongs accompanied by Bill Raymond on the piano.

Mabel Beightol, born in Salona in 1910, told an Express writer of watching 10 cent movies, riding the streetcars, and working at the A&P grocery store for 8 cents/hour. Twila Daugherty, born in Tamarack in 1924, spoke of a childhood memory of a pregnant albino skunk that came up into their kitchen through a hole in the floor, walked across the kitchen floor, and then waddled out the back door to their orchard never to be seen again. In 1942, Twila went to work as a carpenter for the Renovo Pennsylvania Railroad yards when the company, like Piper in Lock Haven, began to hire women after the men left to join the military. This was a time when there were 19 bars and 9 churches in Renovo. In Twila’s group of female workers, “going to a grandmother’s funeral” were the code words for a night on the town that did not involve any of the 9 churches.

There are stories in our files about growing up Italian in Lock Haven by Bob Hull, Lenny Parucha and Mary Louise Graziano. Dorothy Gaudiose wrote of her brother-in-law Michael Russo who came to Lock Haven at the age of five from Colliano, Italy, in 1900. Much later he joined with William Caprio, Anthony Grieco and Stephen Romeo to establish a wholesale grocery business called the Italian Supply Co. in the brick building still standing next to the Steve Shannon tire store. Articles about area residents by writers such as Matt Connor, Harlan Berger, Steve Poorman and Lou Bernard are located in our “Columnists” file.

As we enter 2026, this may be the year to learn more about the life of your parents and grandparents. There are guides for teachers at the museum to facilitate starting such a project for your students. Individuals may make a list of questions about a person’s early memories, their school years, their first job and their career, how they met their partner, their travels, their pets, their military service if applicable. Always remember, however, that these are just questions and not an interrogation. If the person expresses reluctance to talk about a certain topic, move on. The cold nights might also be an opportunity to identify people and events in the old family photos. Learning the history of your family is fun and important because their stories are part of your story.