SLOCHS Community Based Learning Weblog

I did my second shift from 9-1 at the Museum research room. I spent my time scanning the pictures I cataloged last time. Again, just about as exciting. I should have taken the advice and volunteered both upstairs and downstairs, but alas…

A rep from a Civil Engineering firm came into the research room to look for documents on a county road, and it’s original width and size. I assumed it was to settle a dispute over how far the County right of way extended into someones property. Goes to show how important cataloging and storing all kinds of documents are. She ended up going into original maps and plansets dated to the early 1900’s, and handling the actual papers. I thought that was really neat, to hold something that old.

Just found out about the switcheroo in staffing at the SLOCHS. Wish Kim the best of luck at her new position. I thought working with her was great.

Bryan Wheeler

So i realized that I never signed in to write in the blog, but just read what everyone else wrote… so here goes!

My two shifts were spent exclusively with Kimberly, first with her at the off-site facility, and then in the research room. I spent my time exclusively with one box of Gin, or Young Louie’s pictures, as many others of you have done. These pictures were of a few things: A flood in Santa Maria in 1952, a parade in SLO in the early 1960’s, three sets of wedding photos, graduation pictures, and a set of photo’s of Young Louie’s birthday celebrations.

These were the most interesting photos I dealt with were the ones with the birthday celebrations. It seems Young Louie was born on the same day as two other fellows in the area, and they celebrated their birthdays together. There was a picture of a birthday cake with a stork who had a list of their three names, each crossed off. Ah, 1960’s humor at its finest.

Also like many of you had said, The iPod came in handy today, as writing numbers on the back of photo’s can be pretty mind numbing work. The new Radiohead album is great…. I had to go home at lunch to recharge the batteries to last the afternoon.

In the afternoon, I worked with Shannon on creating a way to preserve arrowheads found around SLO county. didn’t really have much to do with our class, but is just an example of the overwhelming amount and varying kinds of things that the society preserves for display. A Native American exhibit on the Chumash would be very interesting… another ethnic group who has been swept under the rug in this county.

Bryan Wheeler

I have to admit I was kind of sad going to finish my last three hours of volunteer work. But I got a shirt and calendar, which made things better. Anyway, my job was to look through some photos/negatives and label them so they could be moved to storage. Everything needs to have a year donated/number corresponding to the donor/ item number. Although I was sick with a fever and other gross cold symptoms, the three hours went by really fast. In conclusion, it was a successful last day (since I finished a whole box of photos! yay!)

Shift #3 Due to the fact that Kimberly was promoted and needed to spend most of her time at the Museum instead of at the warehouse location, I spent the rest of my shifts working out of the Museum, although I continued to work on the same box that I had been sorting through for most of the rest of my time with SLOCHS. This box that I sorted through was a normal sized box, but it was amazing to find the variety and volume of various items it contained. I found several differently sized photography envelopes that were unfortunately empty. However, I also discovered several certificates of recognition and appreciation to both Young and Stella Louis including SLO Rotary Club memberships and Recognition of 42 years of service to the SLO Rotary Club. Young Louis also received a Mustang Award for outstanding service to Cal Poly and the Louis family received a Cal Poly Distinguished Alumnus Award. The number and value of these awards demonstrates how greatly involved Stella and Young Louis were in the SLO community. Another random but quite interesting piece of history that I discovered in the box was guidebook to New Orleans that was published in 1936. I also discovered a newspaper article from the SLO Reporter Sept 11, 1952 that described the blue ribbon award that was won by Stella Louis for a picture she had taken that was awarded at the First Annual Professional Photographers Association of CA. The best find of the day was an envelope containing a letter from Manuel BoyFrank from Cambria, CA to Young Louis asking him to review the following letter. The second letter in the envelope was from Manuel to a Mr. Lai in San Francisco, CA and the letter contained Mr. BoyFrank’s reasearch about the history of Chinese people in Cambria and SLO County. If any of you are particularly interested, Prof. Yeh and I both have a copy of this letter. Finally, two other interesting things that I found in the box were a manuscript describing the Chinese New Year Celebration as it used to happen in old China and a roll of special paper with many artistic paintings of birds, flowers, and Chinese characters. Whew, that was quite the informative and interesting session.

Shift #4 The discoveries from this shift weren’t quite as significant as those from the previous shift, but the box still had many interesting things to reveal to me. One interesting thing that I found was a Wedding Form for the wedding of Roberta Mary Mace and Jesse Richard Strand at Grace Church in SLO. The really interesting part is that the form describes all of the details of the wedding, including what the flowers looked like and how the church was decorated. I soon found out that these two were close friends of Stella and Young through a letter that Roberta sent to Stella concerning wedding details. In addition, I discovered several instructional books: Arithmetic part 2 & 10, Letter Writing part 2, and an entire series of books (1-25) of “The Sherwin Cody 100% Self-Correcting Course in the English Language” along with a Brief fundamentals book that accompanied that series. Well, thats all for this session. I wonder what interesting pieces of history I will discover next session?

Shift #5, Last Shift During this shift I finally finished sorting through the box! One finding of interest from this session was 2 almost identical certificates, one each to Stella and Young Louis from the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California congratulating them on their 71st wedding anniversary. I also found a cloth membership banner for the Rotary Club of Taipei, China and a Certificate to Young Louis for a 50 year Membership Award to the Rotary Club of SLO. My final discovery from the box was a drawing on a photo negative sheet that depicted Stella and Young Louis looking exhaused in their photography shop after a very busy Christmas season. It was a Christmas card wishing Seasons Greetings to all of their friends. After I finished the box, I had a couple of hours left in this session so Kimberly sent me upstairs to work on labeling some photographs and to docent due to the fact that there were no volunteer docents assigned to that day and Mercy, who was docenting during most of the morning session, needed a break. Anyway, nothing too exciting happened during my short time as a docent and that ends my time with SLOCHS. Overall I really enjoyed the experience and I felt that I learned a lot about Stella and Young Louis through the many interesting pieces of history that I found in that box. The questions that I am left with now are about their family. Did they have any children? If so, what are their names and where are they now? Are there still decendants of the Louis family living in SLO County?

So research papers have eaten my life, but now I can finally post as to what the heck I did this quarter. Here we go then:

Shift #1: Rather boring. A 6 hour shift out at the warehouse off Broad. This was back in February, and apparently everyone else at this time had gone through most of the Louis stuff, and I was delegated to loose ends. I had a box labeled “horse stuff” that I played around with for the better part of two hours. Taking out, measuring, drawing and describing, and then placing in a box to be dealt with later. Items included multiple pieces from a family in Cambria, half a dozen horse shoes, two VERY LONG horsehair ropes (thank you to the guy that was working there with me that day with their measuring), and an item I had to call my dad up about that turned out to be a hobble.

Then I worked with a set of arrowheads for the next four hours. This set had the distinction of actually having acension #’s already painted on at some point, and were therefore already documented, so I thought I wouldn’t have to do much and could go onto the next thing. But I ended up taking those #’s off with industrial strength nail polish remover, painting them back on with a brush that was small, but not small enough, and then making a nest for them in a pad of foam. And putting the whole thing in a box. It doesn’t sound like much but it really took a lot of effort. I want to know just what the original #’s were painted with that I would have to redo the whole thing. I was really expecting more time with various articles than being stuck with just one project. Although it was fun trying to figure out which arrowhead was made out of what. Most are chert, but I thing one of them may have been close to serpentine. One was probably obsidian.

Shift #2: Was just this past Monday. Four hours at the bottom of the museum because Kim is over there now and not at the warehouse. Equal time spent on both project I did.

The first was putting the acension #’s on a box of Elsie Louis’ belongings. The biggest part of that were the articles pertaining to her involvement with a charity group called World Neighbors, who were getting a U.S. postal stamp made for their anniversary. Mrs. Louis was featured on the stamp. I never found out if the stamp made it to print. Anyone know? My favorite part about her stuff, however, were the two ink-brushed Chinese character poems at the bottom of the box. One had been translated to the side of there characters, although one of the words was ripped and I couldn’t read it. the other was about as long as the short side of the archive room table, and I got really excited about it. Then my steam fizzled out when Kim said that I’d have to roll it back up to put it away. No-one seems to understand the fragility of Chinese calligraphy paper but me.

Then I photocopied photographs from Gin Louis’ box. It was fun stand in for an hour and a half doing that, and I barely got a quarter was through that box.

Shift #3 : The last one was this Wednesday for a couple hours. Majority was spent finishing that box on Gin Louis photos from Monday. And listening in on the round table discussing a lunch for volunteers and a trip to the lighthouse just past Hearst Castle. I almost butted in and asked if I could go, but they were on a roll. The round table consisted of Kim, Mercy, and a group of Society members. There was also discussion about one of the museum’s next exhibits on the Farmers’ Allignence against the railroad companies. included a preview of a pair of bags for the gift/bookstore area. I think that might be neat to see.

The last part of my shift I put more photos in clear sheets. Mostly negatives and proofs. Not real interesting. I felt bad for needing to leave because I wanted to finish that box of stuff.

I’d like to volunteer there on a regular basis, but right now and next quarter I can’t. but I’m going to try to later.

–Shannon Berry

So I just realized that I haven’t blogged about my last two shifts so here they are.

My third shift was an incredibly slow Sunday morning. We had a total of 12 visitors including myself and Leon. I spent most of the time catching up on my reading and the rest of the time I just talked with Leon. I don’t remember how we got on the topic, but I got quite an in depth history lesson on Earl Warren.

My Fourth shift was a little more active. There were 5 student docents and Leon. Although this shift had more visitors than my last, just over 30 I believe, most of them were friends of the docents. I spent some time watching the PBS video that plays in the front exhibit and listened to Leon recount his days as a teacher in Czechoslovakia. Overall it was a very enjoyable shift and a great way to end my time at the museum.

–Justin Foster

My last shift in the Historical Society Museum turned out a lot more information than all of my previous shifts. I changed my research strategy by focusing my research on news articles from San Luis Obispo from around 100 years ago that were stored in a very well indexed collection appropriately titled “100 years ago”. A woman from the Santa Margarita Historical Society actually pointed me in the direction of these articles, and showed me the very complete index. After this I just went from year to year and looked up words like Chinese, Japanese, etc. and just read the corresponding articles. Most of the information I found was on the Chinese residents of San Luis Obispo, with the content of the articles varying greatly. To give an idea of this variance, one article was describing the funeral of an esteemed member of a Chinese society called “King’s High Masons”, and the reporter commented, “On the whole it was a grand affair, and we have no recollection in our thirty or forty years of life in California of seeing it excelled.” Another article was titled “The Chinese Must Go! – The latest effort to persuade the obnoxious people to keep away.” You can imagine what the gist of this article was. It’s good to know San Luis Obispo has come a long way since then.

-Tyler Hushing-Kline

My third shift was spent once again researching towns of San Luis Obispo County. This shift I chose Cambria as the town to research. After leafing through article after article and finding little more than the mention of a Chinese presence in Cambria, I became discouraged and moved upstairs to help out up there. As there were very few visitors, I used the free time to take a closer look around the museum, and watched a little of the documentary that continuously plays. It was a really interesting documentary, and a fellow student and I even recognized one of the most commonly interviewed individuals throughout the segment of the documentary we watched as the woman who formed the group fighting for the federal case for Vincent Chin. She was much older in the documentary, so it was cool to see that she is still involved in projects such as this.

-Tyler Hushing-Kline

My second shift in the museum was spent researching the town of Paso Robles. Just browsing through the newspaper clippings, pamphlets, and other random tidbits of information that the Historical Society had on the town proved to be a very inefficient method of research. I didn’t find any information on Asian-American activity in Paso Robles, but I did find some information on Native American activity. Paso Robles was originally established as a hot spring, with an inn and a few small businesses which eventually led to a town being formed. Native Americans used to use these hot springs before Paso Robles was established, and obviously this didn’t last once Paso Robles became settled by others. I also found information about how in the not-to-distant past (something like 20-30 years ago), SLO County was something like 9/10 white. However, the article also stated that this number is decreasing.

-Tyler Hushing-Kline

yeah so this is one is really late (my shift was 2/24 1-4) due to a paper being due last week, then working on the paper for ES 244. I’ve scarcely time to write this one down, but here goes.

I was rather surprised to find about 4 other student docents already in the museum as I walked in. Apparently everyone was finishing their shifts around this week, so this shift promised to have some steady conversation. Three of them were from ES 244: Jennifer Olarte, and two other guys. Then the last one was Laura again from Global Origins. The other guys, as it turned, were just finishing the morning shift, so this next one left just Jennifer, Laura, and me.

The shift was pretty much the same as the rest. At first, we all didn’t talk too much; that was the weekend before the quiz. Laura had hers on Monday, and Jennifer and I were reading through our material for Tuesday. Eventually, Leon broke the silence and gave us an excuse to take a break. Like many of Leon’s talks in the past, our conversation centered around music. Soon Leon ran out of steam and we students returned to our studying. the day was relatively slow, but a couple of interesting cases came through the doors this shift.

The first was a family from Puerto Rico who had just moved to San Luis Obispo on business. There were two children in their wake who took advantage of the children’s room for the first time of the day. Meanwhile, I showed the parents around the museum with my regular speech. At the end they seemed very interested and decided to stay a while longer and talk to Leon (sure to keep them here for at another 10 minutes). The father’s business in SLO had to do with the use of Ethenol as a resource. I did not catch much of their conversation, but Leon had more than enough to say on that topic. Eventually, the parents pulled away from Leon’s talk and bid us farewell with the kids trailing behind with their newly colored dragons and rats. One of the dragons the boy colored was actually quite impressive.

The second family that came in toward the end of our shift was a Japanese family on vacation. The parents did not understand too much English, and only the daughter of the two siblings could translate. The daughter, however, was incredibly shy, and most of the time returned our questions with a blank stare. The son was younger than the girl and also spoke almost no English. After some failed attempts at getting to know family better, Laura managed to pull up some phrases that she had not used since she was a child. Through Laura, we found that the family had come from Chiba in Japan and was on vacation in California. Then I stepped in to give my overview of the exhibits. This had been the most awkward and challenging docent job within my entire time at the museum. A fair test at the end was what it seemed. So I gave my speech to a family of blank stares. I had taken a few Japanese courses in high school, but in shame, I could not pull up anything useful to help those blank stares. So I pressed on through the archaeological dig, the forte of my overview. I actually managed to get some response from the family when I pointed out the window (to help indicate that the dig was just around the corner) and when I started explaining the jewels and ink bottles. The Abalone exhibit also did not get much response, but i pushed through and got them to start looking around on their own. Eventually they entered the bookstore and ended up purchasing some books. This marked the end of the day, and my last shift at the museum.

I again returned today to look up more information for the paper that I should be writing right….about…..now

Bryan Agabyani ES 244