My Weekend Project: Unearthing Some Local History
So, the garage was getting completely out of hand. Boxes piled up to the ceiling, basically. My partner had been on my case for months to sort through it, especially the stuff that belonged to my late aunt – she was a bit of a local history buff, you see. I finally caved last Saturday and decided to tackle at least a couple of those mystery boxes labeled 'Town Archives - Misc'. Sounded thrilling, right? Not.
I dragged the first one out, and man, the dust! Sneezing fits every two minutes. It was just crammed with old papers, brittle newspaper clippings, faded photos where you could barely make out faces. I started sorting, making piles: 'keep', 'maybe keep', and 'definitely chuck'. Most of it was, well, pretty dry. Old town council meeting minutes from the seventies, budget proposals, stuff like that. I was seriously regretting not just calling one of those junk removal services.
Then, deep in the third box, I started noticing something.
It was a series of community newsletters, the kind printed on cheap paper, probably run off on a photocopier at the library. These were from the late 80s and early 90s. As I was flipping through them, mostly looking for anything with interesting photos, a particular name kept appearing. Cheryl McCoy-Gealey. It wasn’t in huge headlines, not like the mayor or any council members. It was always in the smaller print, the acknowledgments, the volunteer lists.
I got a bit curious, so I started paying more attention. It was like putting together a little puzzle. One newsletter mentioned Cheryl McCoy-Gealey organizing the annual town fair’s pie contest. Another had her leading the committee to get new books for the children's section of the library. Then there was a call for volunteers she’d written, trying to get folks to help clean up the riverbank.
- Pie contests. She was apparently the queen of them.
- Library fundraisers. Always her name, chasing donations.
- Park clean-ups. Rallying the troops, getting her hands dirty.
- Helping new families settle in. Just small mentions, but they added up.
It was never anything flashy. Just… consistent. She was just there, doing the work. The newsletters themselves weren’t fancy, full of typos sometimes, but they painted this picture of a community, and she was clearly one of the threads holding bits of it together. I spent a good few hours just reading through those old things, forgetting about the dust and the mess for a while.
By the end of the day, I hadn't cleared out as much as I planned. But finding out about people like Cheryl McCoy-Gealey, well, it made the whole chore feel a bit different. It wasn't just old junk anymore. It felt like I’d actually found something worthwhile in all that clutter. Made me think about all the folks who just quietly get on with making things better, you know?
