By Matt Urtz, Madison County Historian
(Madison County, NY – June 21, 2013) For the past six years the Madison County Clerk’s Office has selected a day in October to feature documents that focus on a theme regarding our vast and wonderful history to celebrate Archives Month. Shortly after this one-day event we start thinking about the following year’s Archives Month.
In the past we have talked about moving the events around to local libraries as part of “Archives Month” but we were not sure what documents would make a truly worthwhile display for local libraries to help us celebrate with…until earlier this year.
This year in October we will have an “Archives Road Show” of sorts at our public libraries. Each week two separate libraries will host displays at the same time from the Madison County Archives as well as local historical institutions that will showcase photo’s, letters, artifacts and much more from World War II contributions celebrating Madison County’s efforts.
The displays will showcase how Madison County was impacted during the war both locally and overseas. If you have photos or letters that we can copy and put on display we would greatly appreciate the opportunity to showcase them. We hope to showcase the stories of our local World War II veterans (as well as all veterans) to our communities as a reminder of the sacrifices that they made about 70 plus years ago.
To accompany the displays, each library will host a special event featuring a veteran(s) who served during World War II who will talk about their experiences both overseas and at home after the war. We are working with our veteran’s office, as well as a number of veterans’ organizations, to locate speakers, but if you or someone you know may be interested in speaking please have them contact me. We will record these talks so that they will be available for future generations to understand how these men and women fought to keep the freedoms we enjoy today.
If you are interested in helping in any way, feel free to contact me either via phone at 315-366-2453 or email matthew.urtz@madisoncounty.ny.gov. Do not forget to become a fan of Madison County, NY History on Facebook, and check out the new Madison County, NY History webpage at www.madisoncounty.ny.gov/historian.