by Langdon Clough
This has been a busy and productive year. Last year, some of the early documents received from the Lord Estate were scanned into electronic images and were sent to the Board seeking recommendations about which should be restored and preserved. Hearing no comment, I selected a couple of pieces which I felt were of significance to the family’s history as well as the development of the nation, along with a few others that are typical samples of the collection and, with the Board’s approval of funding, delivered them to the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover Mass. The waiting time was a few months, but eventually, the documents were ready to be picked up, cleaned and preserved. Because this is a very expensive process, I want the Board to carefully consider how many of these should be treated and decide the disposition of the others. This year’s annual meeting promises a smaller than usual attendance, so I felt that I could safely remove all of the documents from their storage facility ( a safe deposit box) and bring them for viewing by the members so that the Board may receive the input it needs to make a decision. Additionally, the office of Historian has received from Richard Clough a collection of published poetry from James Leonard Clough. A fun project might be to edit these works, add a bit of biographical and historical information and publish them as a small booklet to raise money for other projects. We have already been assured that because of their age, they are in the public domain. Early correspondence of the Board (1940’s) is being scanned into the computer and as the office is able, we will transcribe the works and continue to place them along with other documents that may be of general interest, on the member’s pages of the website. Effort is being made to try to whittle our collection a bit by eliminating duplication. Fewer boxes, means lowered annual storage costs and might make it easier to fund someone willing to assume the mantle of Historian. A large box of notebooks, containing the drafts of genealogies used to create our first publication was placed in the care of long-time member Bonnie Rooney. I have been going through the old bulletins and we seem to have an abundance of copies from the 1990’s and 2000’s. Extra copies have been brought to the reunion to allow members to complete their collections. Again, as in the past, I ask for anyone who may be interested in assisting us in scanning and ordering our collections to contact us. Many hands make light the work.