Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Quincy, Illinois, newspaper archives

   Wouldn't you like to know what your ancestor had for supper on June 19, 1917?
   My wife knows.
   On that date her father had beef stew, sliced beets, baked corn pudding and ice tea.
   He didn't record it, but The Quincy (Illinois) Daily Journal did in an article headlined "Notes of Camp Parker" published June 20, 1917.

   Camp Parker was the training camp for the Fifth Regiment of the Illinois National Guard and Paul Hendrickson was a cornet player in the regimental band. The band was "working hard, practicing twice a day," the article reports.
   This insight is thanks to the Quincy Public Library's Quincy Historical Newspaper Archive which I discovered not too long ago. Newspapers published in Quincy from 1835 to 1919 have been digitized and indexed. It's a wonderful source and easily searched. If you happen to have ancestors in Quincy (western Illinois or eastern Missouri) check it out.
   I don't have ancestors there that I know of, but I do have an interest in my father-in-law's time in Quincy in 1917 with the Illinois National Guard.

   I've printed several articles from the Daily Journal and transcribed three of them so far and added them to my website. More will follow as time permits.
   I've also started adding some images from postcards I recently scanned relating to Paul's service in Quincy and at Camp Logan in Houston, Texas. More will follow.