Artifact of the Month - Classroom Souvenir

1989.34.2 - Janice Oilar, Gertrude Straub Memorial

A mysterious Artifact of the Week graduates to Artifact of the Month.

1989.32.2 - *Janice Oilar, Gertrude Straub Memorial*

Earlier this year, in an effort to make the Collection more visible to the public, we started Artifact of the Week on Facebook. Sometimes, we try to tie the Artifact to a specific international, national, or Turtle Bay event. For example, this Classroom Souvenir was highlighted on May 6th in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week. As is often the case, when we dove deeper into researching the artifact, we realized there was enough here for an Artifact of the Month exhibit and blog post! It turned into another Museum Mystery!

Mostly, we had a wonderful time learning about the fascinating Stanford family! But also, a difficult time figuring out how and why this card came into the possession of Gertrude Straub, the donor’s mother. She was not a student of Lula’s. Gertrude lived in Redding and Lula taught in Bella Vista. Then, we discovered that Gertrude’s mother, Gertrude Peters was about the same age as Lula, so older Gertrude wouldn’t have been Lula’s student. How could this card have ended up in the family keepsake chest, and ultimately at the museum?

Here is what we discovered:

The card belonged to Gertrude May Straub (née McHenry) and was donated by her daughter when Gertrude passed away. Gertrude’s mother was Gertrude Anna McHenry (née Peters). The older Gertrude was contemporaries with Lula Stanford, the daughter of a Shasta County pioneer family. Lula would have been 21 and Gertrude 18 when this card was printed. It is not entirely clear why Gertrude’s daughter Gertrude might have ended up with this card, but we think it was simply passed down through the generations and kept among other keepsakes over the years.

The Normal Record January 1910 Commencement - Courtesy of Ancestry.com

According to the 1910 census, Lula lived in Bella Vista with her family. The older Gertrude lived in a mining town called Delamar (now under Lake Shasta) as a nanny for the Williams family. A newspaper article dated October 18, 1911 reporting on a “Farewell Dance for Mrs. Alice Asbell” listed all the attendees for the party as well as their hometowns, with Lula and Gertrude both hailing from Bella Vista. Perhaps the two young ladies remained in touch for a brief time and Lula sent the card to Gertrude later that December. Newspapers were the social media of the day and research suggests the women didn’t run in the same social circles in the years and decades following that gathering. However, perhaps they continued the tradition of sending each other holiday cards and correspondence and those ephemera simply didn’t make it into the Museum’s collection. In any case, Lula clearly made an impression on older Gertrude for her to have retained this precious keepsake.

Courier Free-Press October 17, 1911 - Courtesy of Newspapers.com

To learn more about the fascinating Shasta Pioneer family, the Stanfords, and more, visit the Artifact of the Month exhibit at the Turtle Bay Museum.

Artifact of the Month in the Museum Lobby

Amanda Kramp - Assistant Curator of Collections and Exhibits