Lamar County Genealogical Society PJC Box 187 2400 Clarksville St. Paris, TX 75460 Newsletter July 1998 Text Version PLANS CONTINUE ON SANTA FE DEPOT It's no secret and it's no pipe dream, the renovation of the old Santa Fe Train Depot is moving along at a very nice pace. Prisoners from local institutions were brought in for the last few months and have been cleaning and scraping the old depot as preparatory work before the actual renovation construction begins. At this point the Design Review Committee for the Restoration of the Depot is almost ready to advertise applications for a construction manager position. Once qualified and hired, the construction manager will begin taking bids and applications for the different areas of work and expertise required for the job. Some of the particulars of the renovation include removing and repairing the roof. Other jobs include replacing the sidewalk around the building as well as some of the concrete floor inside the building. Plaster, marble, ceiling, painting, carpentry, electrical, plumbing, air conditioning and carpeting are all on the agenda. No official completion date has been set, but it appears a good guess may be sometime in the spring or early summer of 1999. A tentative diagram and floor plan is included in this newsletter. More To Come Around the depot Dr. William deG Hayden has purchased the land from Kaufman to Sherman Streets and plans to donate it to the city of Paris for a park. In addition to this, he has purchased the old National Hardware Store to the east of the Depot and has begun remodeling there for a conference center and restaurant. In the rear of this building the Lamar County Historical Society plans to locate a very large museum. Doctor Causes Epidemic It's no real secret, and you won't get the good Doctor to admit it, but he has probably been the single most important driving force behind this whole depot project. He has been used to fighting virus infections most of his life, but inadvertently he has caused a great epidemic to sweep across the city. Now preservation and new projects are springing up everywhere like a contagious disease. Last week St. Joseph's Hospital announced they had acquired the old Gibralter Hotel and have multi-million dollar plans to renovate that structure for their PrimeTime program for Senior Citizens. Restoration of the Courthouse has begun. Across the street from the courthouse, the old Texas Hotel is being restored by the Moore Law Firm. The Main Street Cafe plans to move into the train depot on south Church street. The Wilsons continue to renovate and make beautiful again the old Wise Fielding House. The Main Street Project is being revitalized and there are rumors the old Belford Apartments have been purchased. It Has Been Contagious The spread of this very contagious historenza disease may catch hundreds by surprise. Doomsday sayers and sceptics may threaten to call the Center For Disease Control in Atlanta to quarantine the entire city to contain the spread of the epidemic before it gets out of control. Symptoms of this affliction are almost instantaneous. One sees an old dilapidated building, structure or artifact and then recalls earlier memories associated with it. This stimuli then causes the brain of the infected subject to begin dreaming and later scheming on just how best this object may be restored to its past glory. The infection moves rapidly to the heart where emotions may cause the subject to become very serious about such matters that heretofore have made no particular difference in the subjects life. The next affected area of the body is the abdominal region where the infection causes knots and strange feelings of love and affection for inanimate objects which scholars the world over have termed "historically significant." Finally, the victim of the most strange disease can be diagnosed incurable when the vocal cords become infected and the subject speaks the words, "let's do it," and makes the fatal and final decision to stop the ravages of time on our faded past and becomes committed to restoring our wonderful memories. This is worse than any outbreak of sickness ever to come upon the sleepy town of Paris, Texas and threatens the lives of many. We hope that no one ever finds a cure for this affliction and that Paris and Lamar County will be proud of its heritage and learn to capitalize on its past. THE HAYDENS MADE HONORARY MEMBERS Dr. William and Elizabeth Hayden were made lifetime honorary members of The Lamar County Genealogical Society on Thursday, May 21, 1998 by unanimous acclamation of over 40 members of the Society in attendance. The Society met in a joint meeting with The Lamar County Historical Society at the Depot and toured the site along with the Hayden complex. This was the first time many had seen the inside of depot in decades. As special thanks for their love and affection for Paris and Lamar County our society bestowed one of its most cherished and sacred honors to the Haydens and as President Ron Brothers warned, "you really have to be special to join the likes of Elizabeth Booth, Ruth Renfro, and the late Helen Dalton." We are very proud of the historical contributions that the Haydens have made to our county and wish them the best of success in all their endeavors. STAGING AREA TO BE SET UP Society member Susan Lancaster, owner of The Whistle Stop, has generously donated the use of one of her rent homes for the Society to set up a staging area for the move to the depot. It could not be in a better spot. Located on the corner of Bonham and 11th NW just a few yards from the depot, the house will be used to store our file cabinets and many records that we cannot put in the library at the moment. During the last few meetings, the society has met and begun making file folders for all the loose newspaper clippings that have come into our possession over the years. Later on, we will begin having meetings there to organize these files and records so that come time to move into the depot our file system will already be set up. Members are all urged to contribute letter size files about their families. Just send them to us in the mail. (Please include the file folder.) We are very grateful to Susan for her kind consideration. 1998 ANNUAL We must have submissions to the Annual now. It took nearly two months for us to prepare the last one. Please send in your submissions so we may get an early start on this project. We also need more pictures. Remember pictures must be actual photographs. Please do not send us the new color technology photocopies. These sometimes do not reproduce well on the machine that does our Annual. Here are some basic guidelines. 1. Send information in block paragraphs in a story form. Please do not send family group sheets. 2. Please do not use special formatting, double spacing, bold or capitalized surnames. If possible, save the text in WordPerfect format. 3. Send black and white photographs, no larger than 3X5 size. If possible send two copies. One copy will remain pasted to the printers copy of the Annual forever. The other will go into a file that will be kept at the library. 4. Send the information via email or on disk, if possible. If not, send it typewritten in dark print so it can be scanned. It will save time if you send the information directly to Ron Brothers, 3125 Clarksville St. #127, Paris, TX 75460 or email . 5. Please limit submissions to no more than ten pages per subject. Remember, the success of the annual depends on the submissions of our members. MAKING IT HAPPEN As time goes on we will come up with several ideas to raise money for our move. Since the last newsletter our workshop only netted us less than $500. Our latest idea is our new T-Shirts. You will find an order blank for these later on in the newsletter. We've got a beautiful sturdy white T-Shirt of 50% cotton and 50% polyester with a multi-color picture of the Depot proudly displaying the words "Paris, Texas" above the logo. This is a "must have" for every member. We hope that you will order these items to help raise money for our move. The T-Shirts are sold for a $15.00 tax included. S&H $3.00 for 1-2 T-shirts and $6.00 for more than 2 T-shirts. GOALS NOT MET So far we have received about $3,000 in contributions. This is a far cry from our stated goal. We have received enough money that has been stipulated for file cabinets to buy them now. Since our original wish list we have discovered that we will have to provide our own shelving. As you know, we will have two rooms in the Depot. We want to house our books in one of these rooms and create a 19th Century reading room with wood floor, wood shelves and period furnishings and fixtures. Because of this we have had to raise the amount of anticipated expenditures on our wish list. Please consider making a cash donation to the Expansion Fund. BECOME A PART OF THE HISTORIC DEPOT IN PARIS WE CANNOT MOVE WITHOUT YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT WE ARE GRATEFUL FOR THE MONETARY SUPPORT AND CORNERSTONE MEMBERSHIPS RECEIVED FROM THE FOLLOWING AS OF 20 JUN 1998 Patsy I. Benson Ron Brothers Billie M. Brown Jean Wood Dingman Jerry Dudley Shirley (Yates) Goings-Lindsey Fern Gold Luetha Pat Grant Nancy Gresham Kenneth & Jeannie Griffin Tom & Louise Hagood James M. Hamblin Frankie Hawkins Zoe Huddle Hazlewood Wyoma Woods Heston Allan B. Holley Elizabeth House A. A. Howard Helen Burleson Kelso Dennis & Margie Lee John & Rachel Lowrey Thomas W. & Peggy McGee Maness Barbara Martin Nothera R. Martin Gloria D. McCuistion Cecile L. Roden Mary Sawyer Mary Lou Swarner Gary & Vicky Sykes Homer P. Thomson Tony & Pam Underwood Sharon Weinraub Roberta Woods Charles E. Workman, Jr. We are deeply grateful for donations of microfilm readers by Judy Allen and Dale Terry, and for a very thoughtful donation of office furniture from Cleo Moseley who gave two desks, several chairs, tables, lamps and other items from the office of her late husband James D. Moseley 1920 1996. We appreciate any donation, large or small for the benefit of historical research!