As a new year gets underway, the Historical Society of Cecil County’s winter speakers series continues on January 4, 2014, when Emily Kilby talks about “Reconstructing 100 Ruins.”
Several years ago the retired magazine editor’s curiosity was aroused by clusters of crumbling stone ruins and walls in the Fair Hill Nature Resources Management Area. What was their story? Who were the people living here? What sorts of lives did residents of this corner of northeastern Maryland live before the small settlements vanished and the public roads and commercial establishments serving them disappeared. The more she wondered about these historical curiosities the more convinced she became that she needed to look into this matter.
So the writer took a systematic, scholarly approach, an in-depth exploration of a previously unstudied subject in a scenic region of Cecil County. Emily spent many weeks pouring over original, largely untapped sources materials, such as old pictures, maps, court documents, census registers, and family papers, and these provided original insights, revealing the lost histories of abandoned properties within the Fair Hill Natural Resources Management area.
Join Emily Kilby on January 4, at 2:00 p.m. at the Historical Society of Cecil County, 135 E. Main St., in Elkton for this free program that brings Fair Hill’s 19th and early 20th century world black to life. As she presents her findings about home-sites, industries, and families whose traces remain hidden in the park, the writer will also share stories about the conventional and serendipitous research methods she used to discover the histories of some 100 forgotten properties.
Mike, as you probably know, Mark & I’s mother lived in the one of the houses at the BeeHive. She as washing dishes with our Grandmother King one night in January 1946 when our Grandfather King looked out the window and said “I wonder who that sailor is getting out of the taxi may be?” My mother dropped and broke this dish and ran out of the house into our father’s arms who she had not seen in three years.
Mark, thanks for sharing that.