links...

...for someone who managed to kill the comment ability on their blog. *g*

http://veredgf.fredfarm.com/vbrush/main.html

http://www.creativemac.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=15700
http://www.creativemac.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=19483

http://www.xperimentation.com/vbrush/gosearch/index.html
(search)

Fredonia <3

I adore this town. So much. ^_______________^

I stopped in to the Darwin R. Barker Museum (on the corner of Main and Day streets, attatched to the Darwin R. Barker Library) today, hoping the upstairs would be open so I could get a photo of an old bookshelf I remember being up there for a background image on my project. As I was poking around the Victorian room, taking a few quick photos, one of the women working there came up to talk to me. I mentioned I was looking around for ideas and inspiration for a project I was working on for class, involving a story of some students at the Normal School around 1900...and before I knew it, I was ushered into the research room and had a polio of old class photos, dating back into the 1800s. ^___________^ Then a file was pulled out, full to the brim with old papers from the Normal School, play programmes and commencement programmes and all sorts of awesome things.
I was overwhelmed. *giggles* I didn't look at anything today, as I hadn't any paper with me to take notes, nor had I planned on staying there long (I'm definitely in need of a nap, I think), but I think I'll head back tomorrow afternoon, when the upstairs will be open, and will immerse myself in 1900 Fredonia. Oh this is far too fun. *laughs* I need to get going on the actual website end of it though.....
I had noooo idea there was that much in that little room in there, I'd peeked in there before but hadn't the faintest what sorts of wonderful resources were stashed in there, that's so fecking cool. And the people were so nice and friendly, and so trusting too, giving me permission to go through all these things with no hassle at all...
<3

more on the identity project...

...which I really should reign back in, for now at least, to things that'll be immediately relevent. ^^; I spent a good couple of hours playing with the microfilms over in Reed this afternoon, looking through old Fredonia and Jamestown newspapers (once I figured out how to use the silly things without breaking something).. gooodnessss, I could spend weeks and barely scratch the surface. *laughs* Wish there were a decent subject indexing somewhere, there's one for a Jamestown paper but not Fredonia's.
I could find no trace of one of the girls on the gravestone in question.. the other, all I found was the date of her death and that it was in Cordova, and the date of her marriage, her maiden name, that she was from Fredonia and her husband from..Michigan, I think. Have yet to find anything on her family.. his last name is Smith. There were at least two Henry Smiths living in the area at the time... -_-;

So now that I'm back here, I've been looking around a few websites with local history, the chamber of commerce's page, Chataqua county's bit on rootsweb.com (where I've found myself before - incredibly helpful)..
Only now I'm finding contradictions. ^^;

In Pioneer Cemetary, which's where the stone I'm on about is:
VanGordon, Mary, w. C.A. Feb.17,1878, ae 26
In Forest Hill Cemetary:
Vangorben, Mary 1853 Feb. 17 1879 w. G.A.

*facepalm* So guess who's going to trek through the snow and double-check this..
Also, if these dates are right..these two girls would have never met. Yet they share a gravestone, which arches over and joins them together..

Their husbands aren't buried in either of the two cemetaries.

..it was interesting before, but now I'm *really* intrigued.


Of course, the gravestone was going to be a side-thing in the story, and here it is eating up my attention span. I did, however, read through a few articles on the fire at the Fredonia Normal School, which was in December of 1900.. so that tightens up my timeframe for the story, which is really just as well, it'll make it easier to look for information to have it so limited.

But I did find lots of helpful information, just in little details in the articles.. there were dorms in the buildings (which I'd figured), the girls had roommates, they'd had electric lights (which I wasn't sure of)..in the building, there was an elevator and three spiral staircases, 30 girls roomed on the third floor...

There was a photography store in Jamestown, which advertised goods for amateurs.

identity project (yes, again)

Still kicking around far too many ideas. I actually spent hours looking at websites on Brownie cameras (the best resource by far being here, when it decides to be friendly and load)... and I want one. And film. How fecking awesome is it that cameras from a hundred years ago still work perfectly?
(Only trouble is - the earliest ones had photo sizes of 2 1/4" square. I can't even-- there's no way I could compose images that small! Though on the bright side, it'll be perfect for a website - it'll force me to actually crop things. ^^; )
(Also, they only had six exposures to a roll of film, at most.)

Actually, the Brownie I *really* want isn't the oldest, this one was produced in the early 1930s, but it's *gorgeous* and it's art deco and I adore. <3

Hooray for Kodak! \0/

//end plug of homecity

Luckily my photo of the gravestone in Pioneer Cemetary that's going to figure into the story has the names visible (otherwise I was going to have to walk over there in the snow and the cold and things..and I like snow, I'm just getting tired of being cold). I'm going to go routing around in the microfilm over in Reed this weekend, I think.. I've been curious about it awhile anyway. Plus, I need to scrounge for any info I can on the old campus..or the old version of ours, need to sort out where the campus was around 1900. -_-;

Creating and discarding a lot of background things for the characters.. thank goodness I have good sounding boards (read: a best friend who'll listen to all of my ramblings and help me out *g*), cos otherwise I'd end up with far too many clichés.

I *must* be tired out this week, I typically avoid even slight clichés like anything... x_x;

On the bright side, I have a pretty awesome layout worked out. \0/ (Here's hoping the required things to include are pretty flexible.. I really have this worked out pretty thoroughly, and I know it's something I can feasibly do. For once.)