Relic on the Lethe

Revisiting the People's Voice, Volume 1, Number 1, 17 April 1880 , after the first poem we start off with what appears to be a short fictional story regarding a parrot. (Content warning for animal death.) This story appears - so far! - to have only appeared in this newspaper, not in any other books or papers easily searchable against our friend Google. There are not a lot of clues to go on for this story. The author wrote under the nom de plume Mrs Em. B. Dubbleyu (so likely the real initials are M.B.W., though one can never be sure). The name has not popped up in other searches either, leading to the idea this is a local author with only one story to her (or his) credit. So, what is this story? Although the newspaper is fragmentary, we can glean a young girl, Amy, is living with her aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Fielding. On a neighborhood walk in "a pretty Ohio village," Amy and her aunt are accosted by a green parrot named Poll, who calls the girl "Ada" and se...

From the Annandale Recorder, Volume 1, Number 2, 1 September 1955 , comes a look back at a flurry of building activity in local schools. Newcomers to Annandale will hardly remember the tenseness of the school situation a few years ago, when Quonset huts with their inadequate space and heating accommodations, half-day sessions, long and wearying bus rides, rented rooms in neighboring churches, and inadequate recreational equipment were the lot of the children of this community. Quonset huts (pictured in the lower image from the Annandale Reporter) were an invention of the World War II era, when the U.S. Navy needed cheap, lightweight, and easily assembled structures. Instead of trailers, as we might expect to see during a school renovation today, these half-round, corrugated metal buildings were the closest option to pre-fab classrooms available at the time. After the war, the remaining buildings, declared military surplus, found another temporary life serving schoolchildren in Fairfa...

I visited one of my favorite places to find unusual history today, the Virginia Chronicle. A new newspaper was added to the collection since the last time I checked in, and the paper started with a poem:   The Storm.  The tempest rages wild and high,  The waves lift up their voices and cry  Fierce answers to the angry sky:  Miserere Domine!    Through the black night and driving rain  A ship is struggling, all in vain,  To live upon the stormy main;  Miserere Domine!    The thunders roar, the lightnings glare,  Vain it is now to strive or dare;  A cry goes up of great despair;  Miserere Domine!    The stormy voices of the main,  The moaning wind and pelting rain,  Beat on the nursery window pane,  Miserere Domine!    Warm curtain'd was the little bed,  Soft pilow'd was the little head;  "The storm will wake the child," they said;  Miserere Domine!  ...

Welcome to Relic on the Lethe. This blog is my little foray into primary sources to find forgotten tidbits of history. While I cannot guarantee what we will find and what the format will be, you're almost certain never to have heard these tales before. 📖 I am currently aiming to create a post every two weeks, but that's not a hard and fast schedule. I sometime drop hints about my next blog on my Ko-fi page .  A large part of the work of this blog actually focus on the back-end part of making scanned newspapers accessible and easily searched/read by correcting the OCR errors. While this is my hobby, it's still hard work that's pretty much unappreciated. A couple bucks here and there for my coffee habit helps keep up the motivation!