PRESIDENT'S LETTER: DECEMBER 2008
Dear Once and Future Members:
This Christmas card, signed by Mary Ursula Lenfest, the eldest sibling of the Blackman brothers, was left behind when the Blackman family heirs sold the home and most of its contents to the Society, 39 years ago.
Mary was born in 1837, of Adam and Mary Blackman, in Bradley, Maine. She married John Lenfest in 1863 and the union gave birth to their only child, Elmer, a year later. Mary and John waited to join her brothers living in Snohomish until after Elmer received his degree in civil engineering. The family arrived in town in 1889, where Elmer landed a job with the newly incorporated city as its engineer. He married Sylvia Ferguson in 1891 and their only child, Norman, was born two years later. Mary lived to reach 90 years of age, passing on in 1927, the same year that our Ella Blackman also died. I have yet to come across a photograph of Mary, but her signature on this card goes a long way toward making our knowledge of her real to me.
This card, along with several others may be viewed at the Blackman House Museum
this holiday season. Along with a collection of calling cards and invitations,
they have been recorded into our collection of Blackman Papers by Kathleen
Lince, the Society's first professional archivist under contract to organize
and catalogue our growing collection of papers and memorabilia. Also working
in the Society's Archives, located around back of the museum, are long time
volunteers Ann Touhy, Middy Ruthruff, Marcia O'Hair, Donna Harvey and Victoria
Harrington -- a good time of the year to acknowledge and thank them for keeping
a vital resource available to the community.
And your membership in the Society makes you a partner in this effort -- helping
us to keep the facility sound and the heat consistent -- important aspects
to maintaining an archives. If you haven't joined or renewed your membership
for 2009, please consider doing so with this invitation. Simply click on
Mary's card to learn more about what the Society has accomplished over the
past 40 years and how easy it is to help shape our future!
Please allow me to add my sincere wishes to Mary's for every happiness for you and yours in the New Year!
Warner Blake, President
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