edhayslett

My internship has finally ended.  After four months, I’ve finally finished working at the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation.  It has been a wild ride with mountains of work and the chaos of summer classes.  I spent the last few days of my internship working on the Endangered sites list and did nothing for the Greenbooks sites.  I can safely say the most important thing I learned from this internship is any historical preservation foundation has a lot of work that needs to be done and few hands to do it.  The second most important thing I learned from this internship is the colloquial language of the historical preservation field.

I didn’t add many sites to the list.  Instead, I went back to the old listings and filled in the blanks I still had.  The status of each site is the most common update I did to most listings.  The sites were either listed as saved, lost, or endangered.  The Greenbooks project would have had me go the Roanoke City Main Library and look at their records to figure out the locations of old Greenbook sites.  I was also supposed to contact the Salem Museum for assistance.  From the list RVPF gave me, there was tourist homes, restaurants, and attractions for traveling African Americans of the time.  I was never able to make it the library due to other projects for the internship, summer vacation, summer classes, and family.  With school in session, I need to start focusing on my last semester and say goodbye to the RVPF.  I’m thankful for the opportunity they gave me and I hope I’ll run into them in the future.

 

My internship is finally about to end.  I’ve spent the past month buried in paperwork.  I haven’t been able to work on the Greenbooks project due to the amount of work needed for the Endangered Sites list.  The RVPF basically wants me to turn decades of records into one Excel spreadsheet.  They even told me I was never expected to finish the project due to how much work there is.  At least I don’t have to do research for the “interpretive markers” now.

This project has been anything but bad.  It’s a lot of work but beats doing nothing in a museum for hours on end.  Here is what I need to use to make my spreadsheet: 20+ emails, a couple folders full of old records, hand written documents that have faded, and old reports from the 90s and early 2000s.  If that sounds lot, that’s because it is!  According to my spreadsheet, I’m only at 171 historical sites and almost all of that comes from the emails.  By the time of I need to turn the assignment in, maybe I’ll get to the first page in one of the folders.

 

For the past two weeks, I’ve been working on a couple of projects related to the RVPF website.  Basically, the foundation wanted me to find information on cemetery preservation for their website by emailing Tom Klatka at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.  Funny thing is I tried to apply for an internship under him before I applied at at RVPF.

The first project I worked on was related to information on cemetery preservation from various workshops and information on historical cemeteries.  I expected Mr. Klatka to send me a few web links and maybe a book that has been written on the topic, but instead I got a link to a 600 page PDF on the history of burial practices in America, preservation, and information on various historical cemeteries in Roanoke.  Thankfully, my supervisor did not want me to read through all of it and said she would look through it herself to find want they need.  I’m glad she took that PDF off my hands!  I prefer my 600 page books to be on fiction, not burial practices and cemeteries.

The other project ended with a less extreme reply from Mr. Klatka.  I needed a FAQ on how to preserve historic cemeteries, and I can either make one from the information provided or use one Mr. Klatka made.  He already had one ready for me to use so making one was unnecessary.  The FAQ covered many topics such as property rights regarding cemeteries on private land and who to call when finding burial grounds.  It was interesting to read and showed me just how much work goes into preserving historic burial grounds.

Now that three projects are out of the way, I should be getting close to wrapping up this internship.  The next project I’ll be working on involves endangered historical sites in Roanoke.

 

The first project for my internship is down!  I have finally submitted a two page long paper detailing various grants, organizations, and business the RVPF can hit up for money.  It only resulted in frustration and a messy desk for me.  This is not the work I was expecting to do during my internship but it is far better than writing a 30 page paper on anything or doing nothing in a museum for several hours straight.  This project has definitely shown the lengths non-profits have to go to get money for their projects.  Some of the organizations and businesses that were asked to donate include Colonial Dames and Bank of Botetourt.

I am now starting work on a couple of projects that involved cemetery preservation and another project on endangered historical sites in Roanoke.    The first two involve me emailing someone at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources for information on cemetery preservation and making an FAQ out of the information.  The other project sees me interviewing foundation members on the current status of various historical sites in Roanoke and updating our list of endangered sites.  I still can’t believe they’re trusting me to work on some of these projects.  You would think they would keep interns away from vital projects especially ones that involve funding or finding historical information.

 

May Term is now over and I can begin working on the projects the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation wants done.  There are six in total and range from quick and easy to time consuming.

The first two deal with “interpretive markers.”  I honestly thought interpretive markers were historical markers that provided people with information to help them determine if a historical event or place was real.  It turns out “interpretive markers” is nothing more than a fancy term for historical markers that tell you about a place or event.  The projects I’ll be handling involve finding sources of funding for interpretative markers that will be placed in the McClanahan and Persinger cemeteries and assisting with research for interpretive markers that will be in McClanahan cemetery and Washington Park.

The third project deals with endangered sites.  Endangered sites are historical places that are in disrepair or in danger of being demolished.  What I’ll be doing is updating the list of endangered sites by researching their current status and taking oral reports from members of the Endangered Sites committee.

Th fourth and fifth projects will see me dealing with cemeteries in general.  I will be contacting a Tom Klatka from the Department of Historic Resources for information from cemetery workshops and creating a FAQ for cemeteries which will be placed on the RVPF’s website.  The information will deal with the preservation of the cemeteries.

The final project I will be involved with this summer involves Green Books.  Green Books were travel guides for African Americans that would assist them in their road trips.  They would provide locations of restaurants, hotels, gas stations and more that serve or are friendly to African Americans.  I’ll be helping the committee in charge of the project compile a list of Green Book locations in the Roanoke Valley and Southwest Virginia.

 

 

This past week has been quite busy in terms of events.  I’ve attended two events already and will be doing another one on Sunday.  It can be safely said that participation in various events is a major part of working for the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation.

The first event was on Thursday and dealt with a sign unveiling.  It was at the Crystal Spring Pump Station where the site was getting its own “interpretative historical marker.”  I watched the sign get unveiled, listened to the history of the site, and saw the old pump run for a little bit.  It was quite an impressive piece of machinery and I found hard to believe people used to build stuff like that without aid from modern design software.  This event was actually two parts with the second part being a meeting at the Fork in the Alley restaurant for a “Pub Talk” on local history.  Not much can be said about that event besides it involved a lot of drinking and a map of the local area.

 

The other event I attended was more hands on than the other ones I’ve been to.  I went to Villa Heights Park on Saturday for a “Community Work Day” where we worked with a group called Restoration Housing to beautify the park’s main building.  I spent my time that day cutting roots and vines with a hatchet, digging holes to plant bushes, and cleaning up garbage.  We also had someone from a TV station come by and get footage of us and interview the person in charge.  A bike group on a historical tour showed up late to park where the lady in charge talked to them about the park’s history to them.  The event ended with a presentation created by the RVPF on endangered historical sites in the Roanoke Valley.

 

The final event I will be attending is another sign unveiling in Botetourt County.  This one is for the Lewis and Clark Trail and will be done in Fincastle.  Not much else will happen beyond the sign unveiling and I’m glad that will be the case.  These events have been exhausting and May Term has not been helping.