THE FLOYD COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Inc.
P. O. Box 292
Floyd, VA  24091

August 29, 2005

To:  Members of The Floyd County Historical Society, Inc.
From:  Jean Schaeffer, president

I hope you have had a good summer. As I reflect on the past period, it seems time has moved quickly, leading us to a beautiful time of year in Floyd County – fall. So much has been happening with the Historical Society and I want to share some of it with you in this letter.

As you know, a main focus of our Historical Society meetings has always been the interesting speakers.  Tom Perry gave a wonderful presentation about “Jeb” Stuart at our last meeting, and our next three meetings will be interesting too. On Saturday, Sept. 10th (1 pm), Dr. Ralph H. Lutts will speak about the history of the American chestnut in this area.  Dr. Lutts  is on the faculty at Goddard College in Vermont but lives at Meadows of Dan.

Then, on November 12th, the program will be about local Native American history. And on January 14th, Dick Giessler will speak about Floyd County’s famous native son, Robley Evans.  We expect much interest in all three programs and hope you can be with us. By the way, Robley Evan’s autobiography, A Sailors Log (original copyright 1901), has recently been reprinted and is available at the “Notebooks” bookstore in Floyd.

Floyd County was founded on January 15, 1831, and our county’s 175th anniversary will take place in 2006. In honor of Floyd’s anniversary, the Historical Society has recently sponsored a contest wherein county residents were invited to design a postal cancellation stamp.  The contest is over, a winner has been selected, and the winner will be announced this fall.  Then, this coming January, on the 15th, a temporary postal station will be set up so letters can be hand-cancelled with the prize-winning postal mark (uniquely our own), in honor of our county’s birthday.

This postal station will be a part of the January 15th  kick-off anniversary celebration being planned for Floyd County.  Along with the postal mark, two postal cachets have been designed and people will be able to purchase envelopes with those. Some of the envelopes will have a cachet portraying John Floyd (former Virginia governor and Floyd County’s namesake) on them.  The other envelopes will have a cachet portraying an early Floyd Courthouse. (The courthouse has been drawn by local artist, Frances Harmon.)  For arranging for the postal mark contest and the cachets, we extend a big thank you to Maurice Slusher and his committee, Dick Giessler and Kathleen Ingoldsby.

Speaking of anniversaries, our own local Historical Society was organized in 1976 and will celebrate its 30th year in 2006.  How about that!

This past spring, our Society worked with the 4-H in-school program to conduct a living history-writing contest for all 6th graders in the public schools. Students interviewed older family members, neighbors, and others and wrote stories. Almost 100 essays were submitted.  Ribbons were given to all participants, and plaques were awarded to winners at each of the four elementary schools. A big thank you to Society members Becky Weeks, Maude Shelor, and Margaret Smith for helping with this exciting project.

Our Historical Society is a 501 (3) ( c) non-profit organization, and items of historical value continue to be donated to the Society, in trust. For these donated items, best practices for preservation, cataloging, and archival storage need to be followed. We appreciate Mike Ryan (Historical Society member) and all that he did this past winter and spring to help us with archival preservation and cataloging. Mike is professionally trained and experienced with this kind of work and previously worked for the state of Alaska library and museum and the University of New Orleans archival collections.

Some of you may have heard about the recent vandalism at the Zion Lutheran Church cemetery in Floyd. The vandals have been caught but additional funds are still needed for repairs to grave stones. For more information on this historic cemetery and the damages, you may contact Pastor Phillip Bouknight at Zion Lutheran Church in Floyd (P.O. Box 361, Floyd, VA  24091). If you know of persons who have family members buried in that cemetery, please let them know about the vandalism.

Thank you to Margaret Smith, Effie Brown, and Genevieve Starkey for helping with the Historical Society exhibit when the Governor was in town recently.

Thank you also to the “Floyd Researchers” Internet group and the wonderful picnic on June 25th at Zion Lutheran Church. Historical Society members were invited and several of us attended. Effie Brown was guest speaker and gave a wonderful speech about early schools in Floyd County.  We are grateful to the “Floyd Researchers” for giving our Historical Society a page on their web site. Barb Stanley is webmaster and the URL is  http://www.rootsweb.com/~vafloyd/floyd.htm.  It should be noted that a number of the “Floyd Researchers” are also members of our local Historical Society chapter.

Jessie Tise Heafner, long-time Historical Society member with our chapter, has recently moved to Brandon Oaks in Roanoke. We are keeping in touch with Jessie and wish her well in her new home. We are delighted that she is planning to continue to attend our meetings whenever possible.

In conclusion, I’ll quickly list a few other things:

-Our “Windows of the Past:  Historic Photographs of Floyd County, Virginia” fund raiser is still underway and we are happy to report we’ve more than recovered our original financial investment. The photographs – Main Street Floyd 1920, Hotel Brame 1912, and a 1956 view of Buffalo Mountain – fit a standard 11x14 frame and may be purchased for $20 each. Enclosed with each print is a brief, written history.  These prints will make good Christmas gifts.  Cost of shipping is $5 extra. Profits from the sale of prints will be used to help with expenses for the Ridgemont-Williams Museum which is owned by the Floyd County Preservation Trust and is scheduled to open in the future.

-Documentation of local cemeteries is one of our on-going projects. Please call Genevieve Starkey or Cathy Whitten with information. Genevieve’s phone number is 745-7394 and Cathy’s is 745-2947.  Information needed includes:  cemetery name, location (specific directions), family names in cemetery, and any other information you have.  Also, please include name and phone number for a person to contact about each cemetery.

-Do encourage new members to join the Historical Society. We welcome anyone who has an interest in local history, whether they live in the county or not.  About half of our members live out of area. It only costs $15 per year for a membership and the dues-paying year begins January 1st.  For family memberships, the first family member pays $15 and each additional family member pays $10.