Credits

I wanted to take a brief moment to acknowledge a few contributors to this blog.

The first credit should go to Kate Scott and the References Services Department at the Indiana Historical Society for providing me with photocopies of the letters and giving permission for me to create this blog. They are the official holders of this collection on microfilm and Kate has been an enthusiastic supporter of my project since I first emailed about the letters. If you enjoy these letters, please consider visiting their website at www.indianahistory.org and becoming a member or making a donation to their mission.

Second, design credit should go to Alysia Robinette for lending her graphic design skills to this project. Not all the letters photocopied cleanly and some came in with some fantastic letterhead that I desperately wanted to preserve and use. Also, she was determined that this blog looked better than “just a bunch of text” and made it so.

Credit for help with supplemental information goes to my Aunt Clara Carlson who leveraged her subscriptions to genealogy websites and an unwavering and intense interest in history to assist in this project.

Design and Transcription supervisors are Morgana and Scorn who have ensured that all letters were typed with cat-warmed hands and that nobody sat at a desk for too long without a nose or tail in their face.

I also wanted to acknowledge the Forder and Hubbard families and William Max Norris who loaned this collection to the Indiana Historical Society in 1963. Without their preservation of these documents, we would not have them today. If any of you see this blog and wish to send me any additional historical information on your family, please feel free to do so.

And of course full credit should be given to William, Sarah, and Jim and all the “rest of the friends” for writing to each other and thus recording a first hand account of the history they lived.