Written By Mary Simpson & Caroline Gough
GLENCOE - The Glencoe & District Historical Society is absolutely buzzing this week, because a remarkable gift has just arrived at The Archives: the enormous scrapbook collection lovingly created over a lifetime by Mrs. John Alberta (Bertie) Munson McFarlane. Her daughter Caroline and granddaughter Betty Ann have generously entrusted this treasure trove to our care.
Bertie was one of those extraordinary rural women who quietly carried the heartbeat of a community. She clipped everything. Births, marriages, deaths, retirements, accidents, reunions, graduations, memorable storms, championship teams, church news, farm sales… you name it, she clipped it. And then organized them in scrapbooks.
This collection is enormous. What you see in the photo is perhaps one-fifth of the total “fond,” as archivists call a personal collection. The rest fills an entire wall of boxes.
Caroline Gough, Bertie’s daughter, told us that as a girl she never quite understood her mother’s hobby. Caroline loved horses and dance, while her mother spent evenings with scissors, glue, newspapers, and her other talent, fine needlework. But now she sees the magnitude of what her mother created: a family and community archive of extraordinary depth and love.
This is exactly why our county so urgently needs a proper county archives system. Collections in attics, closets, basements, and cedar chests across Middlesex are at risk. Families, genealogists, and volunteer-run museums can’t always preserve these materials safely or make them accessible.
We need help to preserve the originals and then we can hopefully digitize important selections so future generations can search, learn, and piece together their histories. But we have to preserve the originals.
So, consider this a gentle encouragement to everyone: take a look through your own family papers. Add your memories. Label the photographs. Write down the stories. And tell the stories to your grandchildren. We are the storykeepers. Preserve them, and pass them on to the next generation of storytellers.
