TSGS Meeting Recap For Those Not Attending

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Here is a summary of portions of our TSGS monthly membership meeting Tuesday night at willard Library. It was Valentine's Day so the attendance was down a little. We did have 17 to show up. To see a bigger, better image of each photo just click on it and then return to this page. In the first photo, President Don Counts has just called the meeting to order (note clock in upper left... our meetings start at 7PM the second Tuesday of each month). During the meeting President Counts made several announcements. He reminded everyone to make sure we have their current mailing address for the member's journal the Tri-State Packet and that dues are due in July for the fiscal year 2012-2013. The President has appointed John G. West as Chair of the Nominating Committee for the next fiscal year's officers that will be elected in June.

The next photo shows a shot of those in attendance while Secretary Kim Nightingale reads the minutes of the previous meeting.Below, TSGS Program Chair Becky West is introducing our speaker for the night.Our speaker was Kim Nightingale who provided us a very interesting and entertaining program she called "Hoosiers on the Oregon Trail" from reports/diaries of many who traveled the route for land. She mentioned at the end that one of the travelers was her ancestor.After the program, Becky West gave each lady a little gift to recognize the pioneer efforts of our lady ancestors. Each had a heart to show how much each of us appreciate the efforts of all women - today & in the past! The drawing for the attendance prize was won by Betty Counts who chose a TSGS membership for 2012-2013. The attendance prize is the society's way of saying thanks for attending the meetings. The programs alone are worth the time to attend, but we wanted to show how much it means for people to visit the society's meetings! The meeting was adjourned at 7:50 PM.

Next meeting will be March 13th. when Stan Schmitt will complete is program of Evansville's involvement with the Civil War. His program last fall was cut short by the library's new, young security guard that was totally unaware that we were conducting a meeting and generally stayed a little past the normal closing time. Stan's presentation was so good that everyone wanted he to come back to let us know how the war ended! :)

"Happy Valentine's Day"

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Remember your Valentine, today!

Becky & I several months after we were married in 1969. This was taken in Evansville while on leave from Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City. We were young, thin and had no children! 41 years later, Becky is still my Valentine!

- Photo submitted by JGWest

THE CAPTAIN'S LOG –TSGS News

We conduct the TSGS monthly meetings on the second Tuesday of each month. The above photo was taken at the pre-meeting HELP Session led by Rena Goss on "Ohio Research." There was a nice crowd for her program. At the monthly meeting, Rena's husband Larry Goss gave his program on "Grandma's Photo Album" - a very informative and entertaining slide presentation. Thanks to Rena & Larry for two great programs. More photos of the meeting on our web site: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~intsgs/index.html Scroll down to 2009 TSGS Photo Album click on it... come back to the main page and check out some of the other photos.

Yesterday was the 200th. Anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's Birthday. He was known as “Honest Abe” and he was not a very good looking person. He did not let his lack of good looks deter him; in fact, he often used that fact to his favor. During one of the Douglas/Lincoln debates, Douglas accused “Honest Abe” of being “two-faced” concerning some issues. Lincoln asked the crowd, “I leave it up to you, if I had two faces, would I be wearing this one? Which drew a loud roar of laughter and totally destroyed Douglas' point against Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was special to me as I was growing up because we lived so close to Gentryville, IN where Lincoln spent his boyhood years.

Today is Friday the 13th. a day generally regarded as unlucky. I have always been kind of a “lucky” person and Friday the 13th. always seemed to enhance that good luck. To make my point, I have found three $20 bills on three Friday the 13 days. Other good things have happened for me on this day. I have always tried to maintain a positive outlook on all sorts of situations that seems to help make positive things happen in my life. Even when something bad happens, I tend to think how much worse it could have been had it been that I was not so lucky!

Tomorrow is Valentine Day or is it Valentine's Day. Forty years ago, I surprised Becky on Valentine Day with an engagement ring. It has been hard to beat that present. I am pleased to say that after 40 years, she is still my “sweetheart!”

Back to yesterday, the TSGS Cruiser Blog had a lot of visitors with 93 hits! Of those visits 62 were unique visits meaning that is counted as one hit in 24 hours per individual (actually computer); and, of those 59 were first time visitors to our blog! In the last 3 days we have had over 100 first time visitors!!! Hopefully many will find their way back to visit us again. Our regular web site reached an interesting number of visitors yesterday of 55,555 since we began that web site in 1996. Since Thanksgiving 2008 we have had over 3,500 visits to the web site.

Sent in by former TSGS President, Margery W Shaw - In the February 2009 issue of USI magazine, look on page 7 to read the description of the collection of photographs and then go online at www.in.gov/memories There are many from Evansville, Indiana.

Sent in by Chris Myers - The Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library has some high resolution photos and a couple of early City Directories up at this site: http://evpl.org/research/digitalcollections/

- by John G. West, TSGS President