Needles in Haystacks

Because the Historical Society and the Genealogical Society were closed until 1:00, we started our research this morning at the Ross County Courthouse, which just happens to be the site of the first capitol in Ohio.

 We just got inside when we were asked to leave.  A fire drill was  beginning.  We joined the staff on the sidewalk and felt right at home, even suggesting they should maybe stay in line.  :-)

 Back inside, we were escorted by the front door guard back to the archives building.

 We looked through a lot of records.  This book of copies of wills gave me eye strain.

It was a huge disappointment to find that the death records went back only to five months AFTER Charles Reeder's death.  We found nothing.

When we got back outside the heat and humidity were shocking.  We moved slowly as we took a walking tour around part of historic Chillicothe.

 There are many grand houses in many different styles lining the streets just blocks off Main.

 This is the home and birthplace of Lucy, wife of President Rutherford Hays.

Now were were needing shelter from the heat, and we found it here at a coffee shop in an old silent movie theater, right where we had parked our car.

It was cool and comfortable in there and we had coffee and biscotti, and talked, and then had ice cream for the rest of our early lunch.  Why not?

Tom talked to a man who works at the Gazette, the local newspaper, in the coffee shop, and found out that the library has microfilm of old issues of the newspaper so we went there but had to sign up to use the microfilm later because it was in use by two women named Reider who were looking for family history too.

Then we went across the street to the Ross County Historical Society.

Here a lovely lady who knew we were coming had done some previous research, but had found nothing new.  We looked in more records, brainstormed what else we could check into, but eventually had to give up there too.

Next stop was the Genealogical Society.  There we confirmed some of what Tom had already collected off the internet, but nothing new.  We did find a map of local property owners from ten years after Charles Reeder died  that might help us to locate the property he owned for a short time.  We'll be looking for that tomorrow as we go out to the town of Bainbridge.

Back at the library to check the newspaper microfilm, we discovered that three months of issues, including the one we needed, were missing.  That did it.  We were done.  We went to the fair.

The Ross County Fair is held at the fairgrounds outside of Chillicothe.  It was in full swing.  It was still hot and humid, but the threat of thunderstorms had diminished.

 This place was a fried food lovers dream come true!

 We walked around most of the fair first, and then I had a corn dog and Tom had an Italian sausage dog.  We walked around some more and then got ice cream here.

 There was one whole barn just of 4-H club displays.

And there were goats and sheep and hogs and chickens and rabbits and cows.  We didn't stay for the rodeo.  No needles in haystacks here, just food for the animals.

 Watching hog judging seemed like a very popular activity.  there were even princesses.

 Here the prize was for the biggest, not necessarily the best.

 The turkeys and geese were a bit cramped for space.

The roosters were proud and lovely, and noisy.

 The cattle were content.

We were back in our hotel room by 8:00, not so content,  but at least comfortable.