From The Revolutionary War (1775-1783), War of 1812 (1812-1815), Mexican - American War (1846-1848) and so on, our little portion of the United States was connected. The title of our project is “Our Local Soldiers: Not Forgotten”. We’d like to tell their story. They are gone, however in our eyes they’ll not be forgotten.
The Project Committee will be made up of dedicated volunteers from the Four Corners Heritage Center and college student interns who are majoring in History. We’ll be researching of the details of our local soldiers, scanning photos and archives, locating suitable items and creating the pieces for the exhibits. Most of the activities will take place at the Heritage Center in Grelton, except for the various outreach opportunities. A timeline is developed for reference.
March – April
Soon after acceptance of the grant decision is made the committee will meet and organize (February / March). We’d begin in March gathering and soliciting information from individuals, families and the various groups that may have information regarding our fallen soldiers and promote about the upcoming exhibit. The purchasing of exhibit and the other items needed will be made after the March time frame. We will begin promoting for oral history volunteers to be interviewed, asking for photos we can scan, digging into all the books and various online sites for any information.
May - October
The time frame of May through October we’ll host or participate in a variety of activities for our local veterans. For example, the Henry County Historical Society hosts a free bean soup for veterans during the county fair. We will support and promote our exhibit during this. We’d like to host a military round-table on various topics at the Heritage Center or other sites.
November - February 2025
The goal is to have the “Our Local Soldiers: Not Forgotten” exhibit ready for by Veteran’s Day of 2024, which falls the day after our November 2nd Sunday open house.
The funds will help our organization with developing an exhibit called Our Local Soldiers: Not Forgotten and a traveling tie-in exhibit.
The artifact donations to our collection are increasing regularly. Our Collection Management System we use to accession is the Catalog It program. We’ve been inputting objects and their stories, but recently realized that it’s more than that we’re inputting. It is the stories of people. One of the recent donated collections was from the Malinta American Legion with the huge listing of past veterans, with NO story about them. This in turn gave us the critical need for registering of our soldiers (past and present) to create those “untold stories” so they’re NOT FORGOTTEN.
We’re planning to work with the numerous Veteran organizations around the county, state or nationally to get the answers needed. Mainly, their role would submitting to us information about their fallen soldiers and anyone interested in doing an oral history interview.
This project will be educational, commemorative and will tell the untold stories of our local soldiers. It will make an impact! It will show PRIDE of our little local historical organization has even in a tiny, four way stop community of Grelton, Henry County, Ohio.
At the present we don't have an expiry date. The exhibit is to be permanent until further notice. All funding will help us with storage of donated and purchased items, exhibit items, stipends for the college interns and other operational/project expenses.
