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Volume 11, Issue 12

December 2020

Central Rappahannock Heritage Center

Newsletter

A place that loses its history loses its soul

Message From The Chairman

At CRHC’s November board meeting the following Directors were elected officers for a 1-year term beginning December 1, 2020: Jack Apperson, Chairman; Florence Barnick, Vice-Chairman; Catharine Farley, Secretary; and Daniel Bender, Treasurer. We appreciate their willingness to lead The Center as more “normal” activities resume next year.

Special thanks go to three outgoing Directors who have served on the Board and in other capacities for the past six years: Meredith Beckett, Amy Olney, and Alma Withers. Their guidance and personal involvement in The Center’s operations have been invaluable.

This is the season we are called to a sense of gratitude—for our family and friends, for the health care staff, public safety personnel, educators, retail, hospitality, and other workers who ensure the health and well-being of the Central Rappahannock area. In all, the people, businesses and organizations maintaining the interconnectedness of our community.

CRHC is an all-volunteer organization with no paid staff and no public funding. We ask that you remember The Heritage Center in your year-end giving. Our revenues are “not the most jolly.” Fundraising activities have been severely limited. The number of visitors and volume of research requests have dropped dramatically since closing last March. We would be most grateful for your financial support of CRHC’s mission.

May you and yours be safe and healthy this holiday season and beyond.

In appreciation for your contributions to sustain The Center’s future,

Barbara Barrett, Outgoing Chairman

The Heritage Center

Become A New Member Today!

Heritage Center memberships support the important work done by The Center.

The Central Rappahannock Heritage Center is a non-profit, all-volunteer archive whose mission is to preserve historically valuable material of the region and make it available to the public for research.

Please join us as part of the Heritage Center's preservation team. As a member, you will be helping to preserve our priceless local history.

Click here to become a member today!

Membership

Thank you for your support,

The Heritage Center

MANY THANKS TO OUR GENEROUS

2020 HERITAGE CENTER SPONSORS

Jon and Meredith Beckett

Lucy and Wayne Harman

Donna and Nat McCague

Hallberg & O'Malley Financial Group

Joseph P. O'Malley

Kitty Farley and Vic Ramoneda

Jim & Betsy Greene

Barbara H. Cecil

Barbara Barrett

Ben Hicks

To become a Heritage Center Sponsor, please visit our website. If you have any questions, please contact The Heritage Center at (540) 373-3704.

Christmas Cards

Do you send Christmas or holiday cards? It seems that the custom has waned. My mother set up a card table, a special space dedicated to writing cards. She carefully penned each note. No Christmas letter for her; her missives were personal, directed to the individual addressee. But where and when did the custom originate?

According to the Smithsonian, it originated in England in the 1840s. The British postal system had expanded and introduced the “Penny Post;” everyone was sending letters. Sir Henry Cole, who was the founder of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London was a busy man. He had stacks of unanswered correspondence and knew it was impolite not to respond. He had a great idea. He asked an artist friend, J.C. Horsley, to design a card. It was a triptych with a family at the dinner table in the center and flanked by images of people helping the poor. He had a 1,000 copies made with a “TO:_______” so he could handwrite a salutation. There was a generic “A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to You,” on the first Christmas card. A Prussian immigrant, Louis Prang, in Boston created the first card in the US in 1875.

The Hall brothers picked up the idea in 1915. Their business eventually became Hallmark, the largest producer of greeting cards of all sorts. With electronic communications - emails, texts, etc. - holiday cards have declined. Technology has fostered other types of individual greetings – the family photo and newsletters. Many people don’t venture into stores these days, but greeting cards and special holiday postage can be ordered online and delivered to your mailbox.

No matter how you do it, staying in touch, even if it’s only once a year, is a nice tradition.

At some time in the future, when the Heritage Center reopens, visit us and see our collections of greeting cards and postcards.

Beth Daly

Volunteer

Collections Update

With this challenging year about to expire, we may not look back fondly on it, but at some point, we will look back.

How will later generations perceive these past few months? What will be saved to tell the story? Often "history" is perspective. Time, as history, will then tell us.

Our job is not so much to judge, but rather to collect and preserve that which helps tell a more complete story.

To that end, The Center is happy to assist anyone wishing to add any documentation to the archives that helps fill holes in our representation of the local heritage . Photographs, court records, books, correspondence, ledgers, scrapbooks, plats, maps, and personal and business records all combine to make The Center an important repository for local history. And it is all available for research.

Additionally, The Heritage Center would like to thank those groups or individuals that contributed collections or supported us in other ways, through volunteerism, monetary assistance, or just "spreading the word". Thank you to all that contributed.

John Reifenberg

Collections Manager