Business: Secretary Melissa Earnest and Treasurer Marvin Downing had prepared the minutes and treasurer’s report and distributed copies to those in attendance. Bob Lochte moved to accept the minutes as presented with Lonnie Maness seconding the motion. The motion carried. John Robertson moved to accept the treasurer’s report as presented with Bob Lochte seconding the motion. The motion carried. Membership dues have remained the same and are payable to Downing for the 11-12 membership year. Earnest, the Journal editor, thanked Ann Adams and the personnel at the University of Tennessee Martin printing department for another wonderful printing of the Journal. Earnest noted this year’s edition was truly a page-turner! Cecelia Edwards showed the progress she has made on the quilt. It basically needs the border and the quilting completed to be finished. In new business, Claybrook presented the following slate of officers for 11-12: President – Gil Mathis; Vice-President – Bob Lochte; Secretary – Cecelia Edwards; Treasurer – Marvin Downing and Member-at-Large – Melissa Earnest. John Robertson and Bob Lochte moved to accept the slate of officers by acclamation. The motions carried for each office.

Program: Claybrook introduced John Robertson as the guest speaker. Robertson has lived in Paducah for more than 50 years, researching its history for many of those years. Robertson added Vonnie Shelton of the McCracken County Public Library had been assisting him in transcribing the letters of Jennie Fyfe. Fyfe arrived in Cairo, Illinois, on her way to Paducah, Kentucky to work as a nurse during the Civil War era. The letters she wrote to her family provide an eyewitness account of Nathan Bedford Forrest’s arrival in Paducah. Fyfe wrote about the Paducah raid while she was in hospital #2 where she could see the rebels arriving. Fyfe eventually began a new part of her life in the spring of 1865 after the Civil War ended. She started working as a teacher and supported the recently freed African Americans in their quest for education. Fyfe was part of the movement devoted to the advancement of freed blacks, especially in Louisiana. She was an accomplished woman in her own right and died from complications of cataract surgery. Fyfe’s grave is in Lansing, Michigan and her letters belong to the University of Michigan, but Robertson and Shelton obtained permission to transcribe them and to have the information presented at the JPHS meeting.

Adjournment: The fall meeting will be held in November in Martin, Tennessee, in conjunction with the West Tennessee Historical Society. Dr. Stan Dunagan will present a program on the New Madrid earthquake. Members and guests were encouraged to take advantage of the half-price admission to the Quilt Museum after the meeting was adjourned.

The speaker for our Winter Meeting was Teresa Ray who spoke about her upbringing in the South Graves County orphanage, Paradise Friendly Home, and her project “Paradise Friendly Home Revisited”.   Teresa became a resident of Paradise Friendly Home in December 1961 and lived there until her high school graduation in 1967.   She spoke of the founders, Leslie and Thelma Murdock, about how she came to be a resident, about life with 50-70 “siblings”, and the demise of the orphanage.   Although in the beginning (1935) the Murdocks did not receive any financial or other assistance, eventually almost all of Western Kentucky, through churches, service organizations, educational organizations and individuals,  pitched in and helped in some way.   The first building was the Murdocks’ two bedroom home but the physical plant grew to five buildings in order to house the estimated 500 children they parented from 1935 until 1978.

Ms. Ray has undertaken the task of preserving the story of the Murdocks and the orphanage.   The task has been named Paradise Friendly Home Revisited and its stated purpose is to “identify, gather and archive the oral histories of the children, staff, and families who lived at Paradise Friendly Home between the years of 1935 and 1978″.  The oral histories are also being collected for the Kentucky Historical Society’s Oral History Commission.  More information on this project, along with pictures of the Murdocks, can be found on the website: www.paradisefriendlyhome.com.  Ms. Ray also hopes to write a book about Paradise Friendly Home and its children.

If you haven’t already, please listen to our interview with Teresa; you will find it under the podcast category on the right side of this webpage.

Dr. Wesler earned his B.A. from Washington University-St. Louis and his M.A. and Ph.D from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.   Dr. Wesler is a past contributor to the Journal (Vol. X, June 1982).  He was Director of Murray State University’s Wickliffe Mounds Research Center until it became a state historic site under the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Dr. Wesler ‘s presentation was an update of his historical archaeology prospectus published in the 1982 issue of the Jackson Purchase Historical Society’s Journal. Beginning with a discussion of the “Vacant Quarter”, an area of the Lower Ohio-Mississippi Valley where total depopulation occurred around the period A.D. 1400-1500, he showed slides of his field research and some of the artifacts recovered on sites at Whitehaven in Paducah,  at Columbus-Belmont State Park in Columbus,  at the Thomas Moore home in Ballard County and in the Hematite area of the Land Between The Lakes, to name a few.  He also discussed the new imaging equipment that allows him to locate ground areas that have been disturbed and therefore contain likely evidence of habitation.

He concluded with a brief discussion of his ongoing research into “lost” towns in the Jackson Purchase area.   Among two mentioned were Nashville, KY once located in southwest McCracken County, and the  other the first county seat of McCracken county, Wilmington.  By maps and the written word, Dr. Wesler knows these towns existed but as he said, archaeology “puts them on the ground” and to do that he needs physical locations to begin his research design. A brief question and answer period followed his presentation.

The West Tennessee Historical Society brought several publications that were given away by raffle; a wonderful surprise for the attendees!!

Held at Kenlake State Resort Park in Aurora, Kentucky – The 50th Anniversary of the Jackson Purchase Historical Society was celebrated with several past presidents of the Society in attendance. Dr. Harvey Elder, president from 1968-1969, spoke about wonderful memories of the early formative years of the Society. Several other long-time members recalled special events and people throughout the 50-year history of JPHS. All those attending received a special commemorative program, a notepad with the JPHS 50th Anniversary logo imprinted on it in gold, a gold pencil with “JPHS 50th Anniversary!” on it, and two specially marked 50th Anniversary Hershey’s ™ almond kisses wrapped in gold foil. Each past president in attendance received lovely engraved paperweights marking the year(s) of their service to the Society. Past issues of the JPHS Journal were also available for guests to take to distribute or keep as desired. A vote to begin the incorporation process was passed and wishes were expressed for the future of the Society with hopes that the next 50 years will be as successful as the past 50!