Above from top: The many items inside of this scrapbook tells the story of a lot of work clipping, pasting and preserving history; this scrapbook donated to the Gratiot County Historical and Genealogical Library in Ithaca held a collection from Mason County, Michigan during the 1930s and 1940s; inside of a loaned scrapbook that was allowed to be copied and placed on file in the GCHGS library.

Scrapbooks. Today, they may be a thing of the past for younger Americans. However, for those of us who are Baby Boomers and older, scrapbooking was a part of our lives.

I clearly remember my paternal grandmother’s scrapbooks she put together in the World War II era. Most of them were colorful pictures and advertisements from magazines and newspapers. Then, there were those articles and pictures from newspapers of the times.

During the 1970s, I kept my scrapbooks of Detroit sports teams, especially the Detroit Tigers. Although the tape is aging and the pages are frail, I still have my scrapbooks.

Most people need to realize that their scrapbooks may contain important articles, pictures, and clippings from Gratiot County newspapers that are no longer in existence. There are gaps in our county’s history where specific issues -and sizeable runs- must be located if they exist.

Critical years from the St. Louis Leader-Breckenridge American need to be included: 1948-1952, 1954, 1955, and 1956. The entire run of the Gratiot County Herald from 1919 is unavailable. None of these issues exist, and vital records of what happened in St. Louis and Breckenridge in those years are gone and lost to history.

I once asked historian David McMacken why he thought “runs” of these issues could be missing. He felt that in Gratiot County, every business with a long history probably had a fire at some time. Newspaper publishers were the same and probably lost papers due to fire. Things sometimes got to where they should be when a newspaper publisher moved. Another reason is that some issues may have been mislaid somewhere or pitched to the junk.

What can be done about our missing history of newspapers in Gratiot County? Scrapbooks with clippings and pictures from these missing years may still exist, although “clipped,” edited, and taped inside of scrapbooks. The contents of Gratiot’s scrapbooks are essential to the county’s history.

The Gratiot County Historical and Genealogical Society in Ithaca has been fortunate in its history to have had the chance to look at scrapbooks. In the past, people like Del DeVust, Anna Blair, and Olive Clark either donated their scrapbooks or allowed the library to copy articles and pictures. When loaned, the library afterward returned the scrapbooks to these owners. As a result, we have many articles and photographs that would not otherwise exist in the library’s collection.

I have often lived by the “scrapbook mantra” whether in my family, at garage sales, or flea markets – never throw out a scrapbook. Especially those that appear well taken care of or have pictures and news articles.

This leads back to a pair of scrapbooks that recently went to the Mason County Historical Society in Ludington, Michigan. The books belonged to a former Gratiot County Historical and Genealogical Society member who was deceased and left an extensive collection of items to the Society. These scrapbooks did not fit our collections’ focus and goal, so I contacted Mason County to see if they wanted these 1930-1940s era scrapbooks. Sure enough, they did and were mailed out to Ludington, Michigan.

What does this mean for Gratiot County scrapbook owners, readers, and enthusiasts?

In these collections, essential parts of our county’s history may still exist. If you decide to pitch out someone’s old scrapbooks with pictures and news clippings, please consider the potential historical value before you do so.

Even if you do not want to get rid of your scrapbooks, you might consider letting GCHGS look at them to take pictures or carefully make a copy of them. But above all else, please take care of and respect the old scrapbooks.

Note: The Gratiot County Historical and Genealogical Society gladly receives donations of items about Gratiot County’s history. However, the Society is most interested in items directly connected to a person, event, theme, or idea directly connected to Gratiot County’s past.

GCHGS is open on Tuesdays from 1-5 p.m. You can contact the director, Elizabeth VanDyke, with questions about donations or loans of materials at 989-875-6232.

Copyright 2024 James M. Goodspeed