By Ian Gray

Amid the soft (albeit electric) candlelight the decorations seemed to sparkle as the faint sound of enchanting caroling streamed in from outside.  Surrounded by a plethora of red and green, visitors were taken back over 100 years into the past when Victorian America was inventing our modern Christmas.  At the end of the evening families left having formed fond memories of melodious music, captivating storytelling, sumptuous sweets, and pleasing aesthetics while learning a bit about where and how our unique American Christmas originated.  All the while, yours truly was thinking one thing—I pulled it off!

    Shortly after starting my time with the Cockayne Farmstead planning for our annual Christmas event began and I was put in charge.  Throwing myself into the season well before the first snowfall, I proceeded to become an encyclopedia on the holiday and how our modern celebration came about.  An intriguing journey, I became familiar with the tale of how an ancient pagan festival morphed and evolved thru several thousand years until it took the form we know today.  Over several weeks my journey took me thru the forests of ancient Scandinavia, the streets of the Roman Empire, westward thru Europe and the Middle Ages, and across the Atlantic to the shores of America before arriving in the Victorian Era where the Christmas we all know took form.

    Arriving at my historical destination, the next challenge was to recreate an authentic Victorian environment for the front half of the Farmstead.  I knew the traditions and their history, now I just needed to recreate them. Thankfully, I was not the first to figure out decorating the Victorian Era house for a Victorian Era Christmas event was a good idea.  An afternoon rummaging around unearthed an attic full of trees, tinsel, candles, and other goodies to make the rooms come alive with Christmas cheer. About a week in total spent decorating, and a few trips to local stores for the reaming pieces, completely transformed the house as if it were just adorned by the Cockayne’s themselves.  However, little time could be spent admiring the handiwork as the real preparation for the event was just beginning.

    While the house was decorated, I knew more needed to be offered than just house tours if we were to have a well attended event.  After some thought, it was settled that live carolers and storytelling would perfectly round out the evening while the offer of hot coco and sweets was bound to (pun intended) sweeten the pot.  Reaching out to area churches and, more importantly, school choral groups produced spectacular, if not speedy, results. Three groups were booked for the evening to provide a soothing atmosphere for the attendees.  Lastly, our volunteer base answered the call to provide a storyteller and baked goods for the evening. With everything, theoretically, put together on paper it was time to spread the word and wait for the night of the event to take place.

    Having marketed events before, advertising went out smoothly and the night of the event soon approached—and it was successful.  Despite our last choral group bowing out due to a sick director, the night went off as planned. The house and grounds shone bright clothed in their Christmas regalia and the crowds flowed as expected.  Visitors smiled while listening to the school groups perform outside before heading indoors to tour the house, listen to a resuscitation of “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” and craft an authentic Victorian Era ornament.  While, not every aspect of the evening went exactly according to plan (for example junking the script for the house tour within the first 10 minutes), our little over 100 visitors were thoroughly entertained and left knowing the Farmstead is a vital part of the community.  About two and a half hours after it started, it was finished. The evening event had ran its course, the house was put back into order, and it was time to move onto the next task. However, while the evening only lasted a handful of hours, its lessons and memories have lasted far longer.

    While I don’t anticipate a career switch to event planning, the experience has reinforced that I’ve become proficient in this very necessary skill for small historic sites.  Seeing all my research, planning, coordination, balancing, and advertising efforts pay off was another in a series of small revelations over the past several months that I have indeed stepped outside my comfort zone and gained skills that are against my own reclusive nature.  In the end, that is what the AmeriCorps experience should all be about, and has for myself over the past two years. Serving with small organizations such as the Farmstead has forced me to tackle challenges that I normally wouldn’t and equipped me well for the next step of moving onto the larger stage of a fulltime career within the field of public history (whenever that is supposed to happen).  And, if I manage to inspire some people along the way to pursue their own passion for history all the better. However, that is yet another story for yet another day.

By Jason Wright, Preserve WV AmeriCorps

For my Great Story, I would like to talk about my “Seniors Meet Seniors” oral history recording project. The seeds of this project were planted during a discussion my partner and I were having over dinner one night late in December, 2016. I was bemoaning the average age of the people that were volunteering at the West Augusta Historical Society in Mannington, WV, where I serve; they are all so old, and yet they all had such interesting stories to tell about how life in the area used to be back in the “Good Old Days.” The problem was there were few people there to listen to those stories. I realized that there needs to be an active involvement by the youngsters of the area in the society, so that they can learn about those days. If they can get involved, then there might be a future for the society. But how to get them involved? My girlfriend told me that nowadays, high school students need to get experiential learning credits in order to graduate. They get these credits by performing community service.

By Edward Pride IV, Preserve WV AmeriCorps

After more than a year of renovation and planning, a celebrated Clarksburg landmark is once again open to the public. Waldomore, an antebellum-era mansion situated on the grounds of the Clarksburg-Harrison Public Library, has served the residents of Clarksburg as a library, museum, archives, and civic meeting and performance space for more than 80 years. To commemorate the reopening of the building, a grand reopening reception and open house was held to provide guests a much-anticipated tour of the site.
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Originally constructed in 1842 by Clarksburg businessman and Virginia State Senator Waldo P. Goff, the two-story brick mansion served as the residence of the Goff family for nearly a century. In 1930, Waldo’s daughter, May Goff Lowndes, donated the structure to the City of Clarksburg to be used as a library and museum. From 1930 to 1975, Waldomore operated as home of the Clarksburg Public Library. After the completion of a new library building in 1975, Waldomore was repurposed as a center for historic and genealogical research as well as a public meeting and event space.

In October 2015, the City of Clarksburg was awarded a grant from the West Virginia Division of Culture and History and the National Endowment for the Arts for the purpose of restoring Waldomore. The project, totaling more than $500,000, included the replacing of electrical systems, installation of new period light fixtures and chandeliers, lead and asbestos abatement, plaster repair, new carpeting and paint, and restoration of exterior doors. Between April and December of 2016, contractors from Allegheny Restoration were hard at work returning the building to its former glory. ​

Upon completion of the renovation, Waldomore and library staff began the process of returning collections and furnishings back to the site. During the restoration, Waldomore staff embarked on the arduous task of creating new policies and operating procedures, the laying out of new floor plans, and the processing and cataloging of artifacts and materials for their eventual return. The once in a lifetime opportunity allowed for staff to institute much needed changes to better serve patrons as well as allow for the continued preservation of collections for future generations.