The Rice County Historical
Society is seeking a 25 hr/wk Administrative Assistant. The ideal candidate will
have excellent people skills, assisting customers in a positive, helpful and
professional manner. Must have excellent written and oral communication skills.
Job includes office management, heavy computer use and general museum responsibilities.
Send cover letter, resume and references to: Rice County Historical Society,
1814 NW 2nd Ave., Faribault, MN 55021 or rchs@rchistory.org.
Rice County Historical Society
RCHS was founded in 1926 to “discover, preserve and disseminate of the knowledge of the history of Rice County and the State of Minnesota.”
Friday, April 19, 2013
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Apprentice: Noah
The Rice County Historical Society has recently begun a new high school volunteer program, the Museum Apprentice Program. The next round of orientation will begin on September 25. Apprentices in grades 8-12 will meet every Tuesday from 3:30-5:30 and learn what is involved with work at a museum, and will do independent projects involving research, collections, exhibits and more!
Below is a testimonial from a current MAPster:
My name is Noah and I have been volunteering at the Rice County Historical Society for the last three months as a member of the MAP program. During the MAP program I have been kept busy doing many different kinds of interesting tasks around the museum. Recently, I have been repairing old, worn books in the Rare Book Room. My time hasn’t just been about repairing books though. I have helped catalog photos, move files, and research bikes as well. Another job I have had was helping with the log cabin during the fair.
I currently live in Faribault, with no intention of moving away. I am homeschooled, and in the eighth grade. Being the eldest child, I have three younger siblings; two sisters and one brother. Some of the things I enjoy are playing games and reading. Spending time with my family is also something that I enjoy. I have fun doing things in my homeschool group. Currently I have been going over to a friend’s house every two weeks to play games with him and a few other friends. I have recently caught wind that our film group may be starting up again soon. The group stopped making films for a while because both the director and producer/main cameraman got behind on their schoolwork and had to catch up. Our group (Phantom Films) has turned out a number of short movies, and it’s a blast doing them, so I can’t wait to start doing it again.
It has been enjoyable experience volunteering here at Rice County Historical Society. I’ve gotten to work on interesting projects, sit around all day at the fair, and spend time with different people. Who knows what I will be doing here next!
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Volunteer Spotlight: Brian Schmidt
Brian Schmidt
became connected to the Rice County Historical Society through his passion for
collecting artifacts from the former Fleckenstein Brewery. After getting to
know the staff at the RCHS Museum, Schmidt decided he wanted to be part of “a
wonderful group of people that likes to preserve the history of Faribault and
Rice County.”
Schmidt, who lives
in Faribault, has been a volunteer for the past three years. He gives of his
time as a member of the collections committee, fair committee, buildings and grounds
committee, and helps in any other way he can such as hanging signs in Heritage
Hall prior to the 2012 Rice County Fair.
For just over 20
years, he has worked for MOM Brands (Malt-O-Meal). He also worked at the former
Treasure Cave blue cheese factory in Faribault for 11 years and for the United
States Postal Service for one year. During his high school years, he worked for
Larry Bhur at Sears (where Napa is located today).
Schmidt was born in
San Jose, Calif., in 1962, and moved to Faribault in the early 1970s with his
family. Today he is married with a house in Faribault, and he and wife, Toni,
have two sons, Derek and Jarid.
His main hobby is
learning as much as he can about Fleckenstein Brewery and collecting artifacts
from that former Faribault business. He also likes to fish, travel, browse at
garage sales, and learn new historic facts about Faribault and Rice County.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Volunteer Spotlight: Shirley Rockman
Shirley Rockman of
Faribault enjoys her volunteer duties of filling in at the reception desk at
the Rice County Historical Society Museum on days when the part-time
administrative assistant is off.
What she likes best
about volunteering is meeting and helping people who phone or stop in at the
museum. She has been a volunteer at the RCHS Museum for the past six months.
She learned about volunteer opportunities that fit her interest while attending
a volunteer appreciation event at the RCHS with her husband, LeRoy Rockman, who
is also a volunteer for the organization.
Shirley worked for
19 years at the Faribault Daily News; five years at Sheldahl in Northfield; and
five years at Hoffmann Printing in Faribault, before retiring. She has much
experience working with people, which has been a valuable help to RCHS. She
also has computer skills, so helps out not only by answering the phone at the
RCHS Museum, but with a variety of computer task as well as filing.
She and her husband
have two daughters and two grandsons. They both grew up in Rice County. Shirley
is also a volunteer for the Faribault Hospice program, and her summertime hobby
is home canning.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Volunteer Spotlight: Marilyn Garwood
Marilyn Garwood of
Mendota Heights travels weekly to Faribault to volunteer at the Rice County
Historical Society Museum.
What she likes best
about volunteering is meeting new people and learning about the museum
functions, and facts about Rice County history, even though she didn’t ever
live here.
Garwood grew up in
St. Paul. She has lived in Mendota Heights for many years. She began volunteering
at the RCHS Museum 8 ½ years ago when her daughter, Sue Garwood of Northfield,
became executive director of the RCHS.
She does a variety
of work during her weekly trips to the museum, filing, typing, proofing,
cleaning, shopping, answering the phones - doing just about anything her
daughter, Sue asks her to do.
Her initial reason
for volunteering was to spend time with her daughter, who was looking for
volunteer help after she took over as director of the RCHS. As the years went
on, she became friends with other volunteers. She also worked during most of
the past eight Rice County Fairs, helping with the task of overseeing the
historical buildings on the fairgrounds that are open during the fair and
include the log cabin, one-room school house, church and Harvest and Heritage
Halls, besides the museum.
Garwood is a widow
with three grown children, who include two sons besides her daughter, Sue. She
has five grandchildren, three boys and two girls. She is a retired nurse and
currently serves as a parish nurse for the Episcopal church she attends. Her
hobbies are reading, walking, travel and spending time with family and friends.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Indian Artifact Exhibit Re-Design
Hello, I am Bridgette Reuvers-Slinger, a student from Hamline University, majoring in Anthropology and minoring in Sociology. I have been interning at the Rice County Historical Society for about two and a half weeks now. Sue Garwood has asked me to help out with a display that they have that she feels is not up to speed. This has become my daily project.
The collection at hand is a set of archaic stone tools that were donated in the 1930s that were not cataloged and very little was known about the tools. I am in the process of cleaning old museum wax off of the tools, putting new accession numbers on each tool, measuring and documenting them, and writing descriptions about each individual tool. The descriptions that I have been writing include things such as potential names and how they were made. I have also spent a lot of time reading and researching not only the time periods but also the material of the tools.
One of the neat things that I have encountered thus far is one of the tools that I had initially thought was used for animal hide scraping. I had thought this because of the shape of the tool and the way that it compared to the other tools. After some more investigating and research I realized that the tool was not only categorized in the wrong time period but that it was not a scraping tool at all. After my research, I determined it to be a knife from an earlier time period. Thus far I have found three more tools that were incorrectly categorized as far as time periods. I have been using the physical evidence of the tools to try and decipher the time period. There are many books that are available that have visual representations of the tools that I have used for comparisons.
My end goal is to have the exhibit completely re-designed by the end of the month. One of the modifications includes a new way to display the tools in the collection. Perhaps instead of setting it up chronologically it would be more visually appealing to display the tools by the function. With some volunteer and staff assistance, I have already taken the background fabric off of the display and replaced it with new clean fabric. Soon I will start to write draft exhibit labels that will accompany the display.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Dalby Database Search Tips
Here is a list of search tips for using our most valuable resource for Southern Minnesota history research, www.dalbydata.com. These tips come directly from the the man behind the website, John Dalby himself.
Cemeteries
All
Dodge, Goodhue, Le Sueur, Rice, Steele and Waseca County Cemeteries are
coded.
Some
cemeteries are coded in the following counties
Blue
Earth, Carver, Dakota, Grant, Lac Qui Parle, McLeod, Morrison, Ramsey, Scott
and Sibley, Lyon and many more
Click on
Complete Cemetery Code List, Scroll down to find name of the
cemetery you wish to search or click on COUNTY to sort and scroll down to see
all in the County. The code for the cemetery is after the cemetery
name. Go back to the main screen and enter the code in the Section
box and click search.
Farm
Burials Code
Goodhue
County – GCFB
Rice
County – RCFB
Steele
County - SCFB
Enter
the code into the SECTION box and click search. If more than 1000
enter
the first letter of the last name in the LAST NAME box
With the
code in the SECTION box enter one of the following in the NOTES box,
Vet..,Accident, Drown, Killed, Fire, a surname, a date in the BIRTH or DEATH
box, etc.
Maple
Lawn Cemetery - To see all in section M, search MEN M To see all in
lot 15, search MEN M-15.
The
Cemetery File has over 900,000 records. You can search any
field. If not sure of spelling (example)
type R in last name field and R in first name field and click on
search.
In the
notes field search DROWN. In the death date field search OCT/2007 it
will show all that died in that month. In the Notes Field search for
Hinckley and you will find all known that died in the Hinckley fire in
1894. Search HOLLOW TREE in the notes field for a interesting story.
Census
Search
household number to find everyone in that household. Over 48,000
entries.
Owatonna
Orphanage Kids. Over 1200 entries. 1900-10-20-30. Search 10482 in the
Household Field.
Church
Records
Dakota
County - East Christiana
Goodhue
County - Aspelund - Gol - Hauge - Holden
Rice
County - Christdala, Eklund, Faribault Mengihet - First English - Fox Lake -
Immanuel - Markers - Zion.
Steele
County - Moland - Sacred Heart, Owatonna
City
Directory
In the
date field type 1865 in the city field type FARIBAULT, in the address
field type MAIN and then click search. This will show everyone on
Main Street in Faribault in 1865.
Type
1018 in the address field and Faribault in the city field, click
search. This shows everybody living at that address in those years
listed. Also in this file is a business directory showing all businesses
in every town in Minnesota and the Dakota territory in 1880 and 1865.
The 1880
directory is a business directory of the State of Minnesota and the Dakota
Territory. Search Hennepin County in the City Field, search Yankton
in the City Field for all in Yankton, South Dakota. Search Saloon in
the Occupation Field and 1880 in the Date Field, search NUTTING in occupation
field and 1957 in date field to see all working at Nutting Truck & Castor
in 1957.
Civil
War
Civil
War File contains 26,000 names & data of Civil War veterans who mustered in
the State of Mn. Enter RICE in the County Box and click search to see all that
mustered in Rice County.
Churches
Search
“Newspaper Articles” for “Church” in the Last Name field
County/Township
Histories Individual Biographies
Search
“Newspaper Articles” by Last Name.
Faribault
History
Search
“Newspaper Articles” for “Faribault” in the “Last Name” field, and in the
“First Name” field search: City Of, Industries, Churches, State Institutions,
Organizations, Early Milling
Lygin
Studio Negatives
Search
“People in Books” by name, or search “Historical” in the book field or “Lygin”
in the Township field.
Military
The
“Military” book refers to the book compiled by John Dalby titled “Rice County
Military Personnel, Volume I: War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War,
Spanish-American War, World War I” (355.3 JD)
Mills
Search
“Newspaper Articles” for “Grist Mill, Flour Mill, etc” in the “Data” field.
Search
“Newspaper Articles” for the township or village in the “Last Name” field.
Newspaper
Articles
Search
Cheese Factory in the data field. These are headlines to articles
from Rice County Newspapers and also some articles.
Search
the name of a county, township or village in the Last Name Field and read their
history.
Northfield
Bank Raid
Search
“Newspaper Articles” for “James” in the “Land Name” field.
Obituaries
Obits starting
in 1858, Search the Date Field for 1875 to see all obits in
that year.
Type
MAPLE LAWN in the Notes Field and click search to read 1000 obits on
interments in Maple Lawn Cemetery. Type A in the last name
field along with Maple Lawn in the notes field and search and continue
with B, C, etc
The
OBITUARIES FILE also contains biographies of early settlers throughout the
state of Minnesota. In the notes field search RAMSEY COUNTY to see
all in that County. We add to this file daily.
Owatonna
Orphanage Orphanage Census
Search
“Census” for “10482” in the “Household” field. Years available are 1900, 1910,
1920 and 1930.
People
in Books
Search
CANNON CITY in the NOTES FIELD and 1895 in the YEAR FIELD. This will
show everyone in Cannon City Township in 1895.
Search
CANNON CITY in the TOWNSHIP FIELD and 21 in the SECTION FIELD. This
will show everyone living in section 21 in Cannon City Township from the
different books we have entered.
Population
Lists
Search
“People in Books” for the township in the “Notes” field and the year in the
year field. Also enter section number, and it will show you everyone living in
the section of the township.
Rural
Schools
Search
“People in Books” for “Dist. XX” or “No. XX” in the “Page” field to see the
students in the years mentioned.
Search
“Newspaper Articles” for “District No. XX” in the “Notes” field.
Sioux
Massacre
Search
the Last Name Field in the Newspaper Articles File for INDIAN.
Who’s
Who in Rice County
Entered
in “Obituaries”; search “Mea Who’s Who” in the notes field.
Yearbooks
You can
now search the following schools and years for students, etc in the People In
Books File.
Example
- Enter Faribault in the Book Field, 1950 in the Date Field and click search.
Search only the first name in the Book Field like Shattuck, Northfield,
etc.
With the
name of a selected school in the Book Field and a selected date in the Date
Field and any of the following in the Township Field, Student, Teacher,
Staff, Faculty, 7, 8 Freshmen, Sophmore, Senior, School Board or School Bus
Driver (Northfield Only) and click search.
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