These past few weeks at the Vinton History Museum have been very busy. The weeks have consisted of doing research on the Vinton War Memorial charter that was found, setting up the summer action and cleaning the basement to be worked on. The charter of the Vinton War Memorial (a very well known building and landmark in Vinton) was found in a spare room in the museum; we decided it would make a great addition to the military hallway. After finding it in the spare room, I decided to do some research about the building and its significance to the town before putting it on display. The charter was signed by the charter members who were mothers of those who served during the second world war. The charter members signed in order to meet the goals needed to build the Vinton War Memorial. My research indicated that construction on the building began in 1946 and was completed in 1948 and the property included a pool and baseball field that were open to the public. An article I found from 1998 (to celebrate 50 years of the building) interviewed Otto Goode, a committee member, that discussed the bonds that helped fund the War Memorial, the research of other monuments in Washington D.C, and Richmond before the War Memorial was built and how the town of Vinton wanted to do something for the veterans of the second world war before the city of Salem did. Today, the pool is closed and the baseball field is now gone, but the building still stands after many renovations and additions and now is used for events and weddings.
The summer auction is finally set up and will begin next week as a fundraiser for the Vinton History Museum. Ben, the other intern, took pictures of all 20 items, while I did some research and wrote the descriptions of them on the website. The items include Depression glass, a sweetgrass basket, crystal glasses, silver plated spoons with engravings, etc. All items were donated to the museum from those in the community. We also began cleaning out the basement of the museum because the town of Vinton will be waterproofing it soon. In the basement we found old newspapers from 1941 and 1945 from different city. One from Hawaii, Baltimore and Washington D.C. Unfortunately, the Hawaii newspaper was not in the greatest quality, but the Baltimore and Washington D.C papers were in excellent condition after being in the basement for who knows how long and exposed to the elements in the basement.
