Now Showing at Morback House Museum

Some very peculiar Tualatin ladies (at Right) peruse the Picturing America exhibit now taking place at the Sherwood Heritage Center museum at Morback House. Peculiar? How peculiar can they be? Come to our March show (See our next post) to see the Hats, Purses, Gloves, and Parasols show that these very distinguished Tualatin ladies have helped the Sherwood Historical Society to put on.

Press Release

Portland, Oregon – PreservationDirectory.com, the leading online historic preservation resource, has announced the launch of their new partner-website HistoricForSale.com. The new website provides a vast directory of vintage homes and historic commercial properties for sale, real estate agents who specialize in historic houses for sale, and provides comprehensive historic preservation resources.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – February 11, 2009

Portland, Oregon – As part of the ongoing commitment to the preservation community, PreservationDirectory.com has once again teamed up with This Old House magazine to promote their search for "The Best Places to Buy an Old House". An upcoming issue of This Old House will feature the 2nd annual "The Best Places to Buy an Old House" article, which strives to identify affordable homes in historic neighborhoods and districts across the United States.

According to This Old House Associate Editor, Keith Pandolfi, "We want to spread the word about neighborhoods where the astonishing old houses are rivaled only by the community spirit."

Introducing:

A Song from
A Ferry Tale: Wilsonville; Oregon’s Transportation Town
A Play for the 150th Anniversary of Oregon Statehood by June Reynolds
with Original Music by Clyde ListHear Clyde Sing the Song!

The Eagles Have Landed!

Today we saw another Eagle Scout Project completed at what's starting to look like The Smock House Shrine. This time, it's a tool shed in the back yard of Smock House (The photo was taken from the porch of Morback House. Click on the photo to make it larger). The interesting part is that none of the busy buggers you see in this photo are from Sherwood. Tyler Johnson, the Eagle Scout in charge of everyone (he's the one pointing, far right) is from Newberg. Most everybody else is from Lake Oswego. The Sherwood Historical Society welcomes anyone and everyone to the Smock House Shrine, Oregon's (not just Sherwood's) tribute to the 1890s, when small town America was all there was, and you needn't bother running for President of these United States if you could not brag about your small American town roots.

June Reynolds praised by the D.A.R.

Sherwood Historical Society Past President and Author June Reynolds received several impressive awards from the Daughters of the American Revolution this morning at the Marjorie Stewart Senior/Community Center. June is publishing a series of very large books about Sherwood history. See "Sherwood: A Time and Place" below. She spoke at some length about her success at involving Sherwood youth in Sherwood Historical Society projects. The D.A.R. gave her every minute they could, but there is never enough time to describe everything June does.

SPECIAL NOTE: Sherwood Historical Society Secretary Clyde took this photo, but no one wanted to hear him sing a once popular but naughty 18th century song about the American Revolution. It made George Washington furious to hear the British piping it during the surrender ceremony at Yorktown. Problem was: Washington did not realize the Brits were actually calling off the whole War! He was thinking too hard about how much longer he himself could go on without giving up the fight!

100 Years Ago in Old Sherwood Town

F. Colfelt, L. W. Roellich, W. J. Edwards and J. C. Smock have been elected to the Town Council. A. W. Hall is Mayor. J. E. Morback is Town Recorder, L. S. McConnell is Treasurer. No one wants to be Town Marshal. "There not being anyone up on the ticket for marshal, the names of C. T. Hall and Geo. Saylor were written in, both receiving an equal number of votes, but not being present to have the tie decided, the matter was deferred until next meeting." 1909 Town Council Minutes for Sherwood Oregon USA

ACROSS AMERICA BY THIS TIME there are 8,000 cars and 10 miles of paved roads. There are more lynchings than auto deaths. A white male can expect to live 46.3 years, females: 47.3 years, black males: 33 years.

Topic: Innovation and History

A Web site devoted to Innovation is saying things similar to what the Sherwood Historical Society Mission Statement says. At least I think so. Please read a very (very) short story called Parable of the Beautiful Town and tell me if it has anything for us and our political leaders.