StLGS Genealogy News

This week, we have a few short items to share that feature StLGS and its members. First, we would like to thank those of you who took a few minutes to visit our website and vote. You may recall that this year's election for society officers was for treasurer and vice president for programs. Voting ended on the first of November, and we would like to congratulate Michelle Pearce and Kay Weber for winning unanimously.

StLGS Election Results

Michelle has been serving as vice president for membership and will take over as treasurer when Viki Fagyal's term ends on the first of January. Under her capable leadership, our membership has weathered the storm of the pandemic and all the ups and downs of updates to our website servers. She has worked patiently to answer member questions, assist people to access the website, and keep up with changing postal addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. We are very grateful for the dedication Michelle put into her position and we know she will do an outstanding job as treasurer. When Michelle assumes her new role, StLGS volunteer, Jim Yochim, has graciously consented to take her place as vice president for membership.

We thank Viki Fagyal for the amazing job she has done as treasurer for the past four years, often working extra hours on days when the office is closed to balance the books, make sure the bills are paid, talk with vendors, and sort out the many bits and pieces of keeping our credit cards current, our website financially secure, and our checking account in perfect order. Viki also works on the Ask Louie team and has contributed articles to this blog and to our Quarterly journal. She is looking forward to continuing those activities and finding new research projects to work on next year. 

Last January, when Karen Goode assumed the role of StLGS president, Kay Weber agreed to take over as vice president for programs. Although she was a bit taken aback by how demanding the position was, Kay has proven to be a tireless and determined leader. She and her programs committee have worked with speakers, teachers, and community members to organize the society's successful Zoom schedules for 2020 and 2021, and they are currently wrapping up the very busy and exciting schedule for 2022, which will be unveiled very soon. Now that she has officially been elected to her position, Kay will continue to keep planning programs and classes in what has proven to be a very challenging time.

StLGS Joins Missouri Community Legacies Project

The State Historical Society of Missouri, which oversees the Missouri 2021 Bicentennial Collection, has accepted our society's submission into the Missouri Community Legacies Project. Our entry, which included a five-page report on the society, a page of photographs of volunteers in action, and a descriptive log of the photographs, was accepted on 25 October 2021 and, according to Beth Pike, Senior Strategic Communications Associate, "will aid future researchers, students, and historians who will one day look back on 2021 and learn more about us."

Our submission is not yet on the Missouri Community Legacies page of the Missouri Bicentennial website, but some of the early submissions have been added, if you want to check them out. Many thanks to Quarterly co-editor, Jane Theissen, for guiding us through the process of writing, gathering photos that illustrate our activities, and submitting our proposal.

St. Louis City/County Biographies Project Update

You probably already know that the society's St. Louis City/County Biographies project was accepted into the bicentennial collection in 2018. (You can read about that in our blog from November that year.) Since the inception of our project, we have encouraged people to submit biographies about individuals who lived in St. Louis City and County, and to date, we have more than 260 of them posted on our website. Biographies should be no longer than 500 words and can have one or two photographs accompanying them. You do not have to be related to the person you write about, nor do the subjects of biographies have to be famous; our only stipulation is that any subject of a biography must be deceased. This is such a lovely way to honor the people who helped make our area a thriving metropolis, and we encourage everyone to submit one or more biographies to our collection.

For more information on the project, including instructions for how to submit your own and to read some of the interesting biographies already posted, go to the St. Louis City/County Biographies page on our website.