Jackson Purchase Historical Society

Dieter Ullrich

The Summer Meeting of the JPHS was held on July 24, 2010, in the auditorium of the Wrather Museum on the campus of Murray State University.

Dieter Ullrich was the speaker on the topic of the Battle of Lochridge Mills, Tennessee.  Mr. Ullrich holds a Masters in Science in Library/Archival Science and a Masters in Arts in History.  He is currently the Special Collections Librarian/Archivist of the Pogue Library at Murray State University.

Among other publications, Mr. Ullrich has written “They Met At Lochridge Mills” (West Tennessee Historical Society, Vol. 51, 1998 Annual Issue, pages 1-20) and spoken about this battle before other historical groups.

Lochridge Mills was located in Weakley County Tennessee and the battle involved Union troops from Iowa and Minnesota and were primarily of German descent.  The Confederate troops were primarily Tennesseeans of the 6th and 7th Tennessee Calvary.  Mr. Ullrich presented a slideshow to accompany his speech and showed not only maps of the battle area but pictures of the various generals and a picture of how the battlefield looks today.  A question and answer period followed.  Several visitors were descendants of the Lochridge family who brought to share pictures and a newspaper article concerning the battle.

New officers were also elected at this meeting for the 2010-11 year.  Our new officers are Marion Claybrook, President; Sarah Strange, Vice President; Melissa Earnest, Secretary; Marvin Downing, Treasurer; and Cecelia Edwards, Member at Large.

Dues for the 2010-2011 year are now being collected.  At this meeting, we were thrilled that  Charles and LaDonna Bobbitt and John and Melissa Earnest became life members of the Jackson Purchase Historical Society.  If you have not paid your dues yet, please send them to Marvin Downing.  Individual membership dues are $15.00.

Constance Alexander (at left)

Constance Alexander was the speaker at our Spring Meeting, April 17th, in the auditorium of the Wrather Museum on the campus of Murray State University.

She began by encouraging the audience to explore the possibilities of conducting oral histories of their family members stressing that a rigid method or a list of questions were not needed.    She also made practical suggestions for equipment that could be used for the oral histories and showed some samples.   At the end of her presentation, she provided a handout full of websites containing specific information about conducting oral history interviews.

Constance also read excerpts from her book, Kilroy Was Here, which was developed from letters of family-member soldiers to their families “back home”,  by conducting oral histories of other WWII families, and by researching aspects of popular culture of the time. A lively question and answer period followed her presentation.

You can hear more about Constance, her activities, and her “upbringing” by listening to the podcast elsewhere on this website.

Constance has been on the Board of the Kentucky Oral History Commission for three terms.  In addition, she is an award-winning columnist, author, poet, playwright, and public radio commentator.

Ms. Alexander lives in Murray, KY and currently serves as Faculty Scholar/Arts & Humanities at Murray State University’s Teacher Quality Institute and as columnist for the Murray Ledger Times.