One woman’s dedication to researching local and family history was recognized at the Royal Australian Historical Society New England and North West Affiliated Societies Conference in Armidale. It is the first award Eve Chappell has been given for her work.
Mrs. Chappell is the research coordinator at the Land of the Beardies History House Museum and Research Centre. She first became involved with history because of her father. He indexed 100 years worth of the Glen Innes Examiner, from its inception in 1870, on hundreds of thousands of cards. Her first venture into researching and writing history led to the publication in 1972 of Their Heritage: A History of Glen Innes, which traced the development of Glen Innes from 1922.
These days, she organizes workshops on the preservation of old documents, records the reminiscences of older residents of the district, and organizes school visits to the museum. Mrs. Chappell also assists family and local historians with their many research queries at the museum and provides the Living History column for the Glen Innes Examiner.
It is people like this, in small places like this, who help keep the art of archiving, indexing, and preserving alive. This small but powerful story was found in the Glen Innes Examiner in their article, “Dedicated to history.”
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
