Stone County Historical Society Receives Grant to Preserve Collection of Prominent Citizen Mary Scott Hair
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May 3, 2018
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An example of some of the documents contained in the Mary Scott Hair collection. Pictured above is a scrapbook, soon to be archived, filled with some of Hair’s “Hurley Happenings” columns, published in this newspaper throughout the latter half of last century.
Isaac Estes-Jones
The Stone County Historical and Genealogical Society recently received a grant from the State Historical Society to preserve the papers of Mary Scott Hair, a prominent Stone Countian and former contributor to The Crane Chronicle/Stone County Republican.
This $500 grant, from the Richard S. Brownlee fund, allows the Society to purchase archival quality resources, including folders and storage boxes. While archiving the material in a way that will preserve the boxes and boxes of paper, the society is undertaking efforts to catalog the papers and make them searchable.
The collection started out as five banker-style boxes, filled with papers, scrapbooks and other miscellaneous items. After receiving the grant, members of the historical society set about ordering professional, archival quality folders and storage boxes to preserve the materials.
To further preserve the collection, including letters from the Civil War, the society is digitizing the collection.
“We are taking a picture of each piece and putting it into our database on the computer,” Kay Vinsand said. “This way, when we are looking for something, we can just come over to the computer and search for it. Plus, with the photos, we almost never have to touch the paper again.” Oils and dirt from hands are a major cause of paper decaying.
“We are really thankful to the State Historical Society and an archival society we joined. None of us have any museum experience before, but this is all really coming together well,” Vinsand said.
Hair studied and wrote about Stone County history extensively.
“The coolest thing to me in the collection are the Civil War letters,” Julie Green said. “I just transcribed one where it was from a man who fought in the war, but his family moved while he was way and he couldn’t find them. In this letter, he finally tracked them down. He was living out west working and finally, after 15 years, was able to get in contact with his family.”
Who was Mary Scott Hair?
Mary Scott Hair was born in 1902 in Hurley and passed away in the year 2000. She was a well known historian in the area and wrote prolifically. For this newspaper, she contributed columns such as Hurley Happenings and Much in a Basket. Hair also wrote under the name “Samanthy” and her columns sometimes ran on the front page of the paper. Samanthy often wrote of Hurley and Stone County history.
Hair first started writing for the paper in 1946. Her writings continued to appear until after her death in May 2000, sharing one of her books.
The Richard S. Brownlee fund is dedicated to the memory of a long-serving director of the State Historical Society of Missouri. Grants from the fund are used to document Missouri, its citizens and works exploring “critical times in Missouri history.”
As part of the Spring Open House on Main Street in Crane on Saturday, April 21, the Historical Society celebrated the second anniversary of the museum. There was a special cake and finger foods were served. “We had a pretty good turn out,” Green said. “Quite a few people have stopped by to visit and have a look around in the museum.”
The Stone County Historical and Genealogical Society recently received a grant from the State Historical Society to preserve the papers of Mary Scott Hair, a prominent Stone Countian and former contributor to The Crane Chronicle/Stone County Republican.
This $500 grant, from the Richard S. Brownlee fund, allows the Society to purchase archival quality resources, including folders and storage boxes. While archiving the material in a way that will preserve the boxes and boxes of paper, the society is undertaking efforts to catalog the papers and make them searchable.
The collection started out as five banker-style boxes, filled with papers, scrapbooks and other miscellaneous items. After receiving the grant, members of the historical society set about ordering professional, archival quality folders and storage boxes to preserve the materials.
To further preserve the collection, including letters from the Civil War, the society is digitizing the collection.
“We are taking a picture of each piece and putting it into our database on the computer,” Kay Vinsand said. “This way, when we are looking for something, we can just come over to the computer and search for it. Plus, with the photos, we almost never have to touch the paper again.” Oils and dirt from hands are a major cause of paper decaying.
“We are really thankful to the State Historical Society and an archival society we joined. None of us have any museum experience before, but this is all really coming together well,” Vinsand said.
Hair studied and wrote about Stone County history extensively.
“The coolest thing to me in the collection are the Civil War letters,” Julie Green said. “I just transcribed one where it was from a man who fought in the war, but his family moved while he was way and he couldn’t find them. In this letter, he finally tracked them down. He was living out west working and finally, after 15 years, was able to get in contact with his family.”
Who was Mary Scott Hair?
Mary Scott Hair was born in 1902 in Hurley and passed away in the year 2000. She was a well known historian in the area and wrote prolifically. For this newspaper, she contributed columns such as Hurley Happenings and Much in a Basket. Hair also wrote under the name “Samanthy” and her columns sometimes ran on the front page of the paper. Samanthy often wrote of Hurley and Stone County history.
Hair first started writing for the paper in 1946. Her writings continued to appear until after her death in May 2000, sharing one of her books.
The Richard S. Brownlee fund is dedicated to the memory of a long-serving director of the State Historical Society of Missouri. Grants from the fund are used to document Missouri, its citizens and works exploring “critical times in Missouri history.”
As part of the Spring Open House on Main Street in Crane on Saturday, April 21, the Historical Society celebrated the second anniversary of the museum. There was a special cake and finger foods were served. “We had a pretty good turn out,” Green said. “Quite a few people have stopped by to visit and have a look around in the museum.”