Week 3 LCHS

Amber Kelley, Anthracite History Museum, 2017This past week at the Luzerne County Historical Society, I worked on inventorying some more objects from the Welles Collection. I came across many nice photographs of individuals who had relations to the Welles or photographs of the Welles. Also, I found something interesting about the way individuals addressed Edward Welles in a letter. The individual who wrote a letter to Edward Welles started with “Bro,…”. I found this interesting because I did not think that individuals at that time used informal language when writing to someone. The Welles family always wrote formally to family members, as well as to acquaintances. The notion of individuals writing only formally at that time is why the informal language in that letter surprised me.

Another interesting object I came across during the week was a small booklet titled “Sayings of Edward Welles Jr.” This booklet held a small collection of things or sayings that Edward Welles Jr. did or said. For instance, there was an instance where Edward Welles Jr.’s grandfather visited them. When the grandfather was leaving, Edward Welles Jr. did not want him to leave, so he tried to take his grandfather’s satchel. Once he attempted to take his grandfather’s satchel, Edward Welles Jr. said “Don’t go Grandpa, I got to stay here, you stay here.” When I read this, I thought what Edward Welles Jr. did and said to his Grandfather was cute. I am not surprised that Edward Welles Jr. did this to his grandfather because I have seen letters he would write to his grandfather at a very young age that he missed him.

During my time inventorying some of the collection, I came across the Wilkes-Barre record of Stella Welles’ death in 1947. The document lays out many activities where Stella Welles was a participant. For instance, she was a part of the YMCA board. I thought it is interesting that she was a board member of the YMCA because of the name Young Men’s Christian Association. I just assumed that the board consisted only of men during the late 1800s to early 1900s.  This is good to know that women could be a part of the YMCA at that time. Anyhow, I enjoyed my week at the Luzerne County Historical Society and I excited to find more intriguing objects from the Welles collection.

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