Historical Society Membership Drive

Tonight the Pigeon Historical Society is hosting a Guest Membership Meet and Greet, aka: A Membership Drive. It's a bit frightening when I, at nearly 51 years old, is one of the youngest members.

History is one of those things I have always loved.  I liked it when I was young and my high school American History teacher, Tim Anthes, made it exciting and interesting.

I think my life in the newspaper world either added to my interest or was enhanced by love of the past. After all, newspapers are a printed record of events.

I'm not sure who is recording history these days.

At any rate, I hope we have 50 or more people show up at our meeting. I'll be happy if five able-bodied individuals join the group.

We need man-power for the growth vision of the Society.  That vision includes a historical "compound" with a Amish-raised barn for display and storage of antique farm equipment, a small church/schoolhouse, as well as other buildings.

There has been talk about a source for train cars -- including a caboose. (Our museum is a 110+ year old train depot.)

If you're local, please come to our meeting tonight.  If you would like to support the Pigeon Historical Society, any donation is gratefully accepted.

Read all my blog entries at BareNakedBill.blogspot.com

Good Bye Bud

Today we'll say our goodbyes to one of Pigeon's last great cheerleaders.

Bud Schaaf died during the early afternoon on Saturday, February 4th, at his home with family by his side. He was recently diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer which claimed his life.

I've known Bud (his given name was Sheril) and his wife Virginia all my life.  Their son Bob was a school classmate. But I think I got to know Bud because of his love for the community he lived in.

Whenever you saw Bud, he always had a story to tell or a joke to share. He was just fun to be around. He invested time in the people of Pigeon to make it a great life in a small town.

You never really knew what he was going to come up with.  Stories of the war -- he served during the Korean War, or maybe some crazy trick he had been part of playing on a friend.

He was a part of Pigeon! After returning from the war, he and his brother Ollie, owned Pigeon Tile Works; he worked at the Pigeon Co-op Elevator and he and his wife owned and operated Schaaf Hardware for four years.

 For 30 years he was Pigeon's Santa Claus with his real-life wife as Mrs. Claus. He was tireless when it came time to sell Farmers' Festival buttons and he served as the Farmers' Festival Sheriff. He would "arrest" anyone who wasn't wearing a Festival button and present the "traitor" to Judge Roy "Hang 'Em High" Lawrence.

It was all in fun and Bud was perfect for the job.

During the warm summer evenings, you would often see Bud and Virginia sitting on the swing in their yard, waving to people driving past while visiting with friends and neighbors to stopped to say hello.

I stopped by the funeral home last evening and visited with Virginia, their daughter Sue and other family members.  The casket spray included tomatoes, cucumbers and what looks like leaf lettuce.  Bud was a gardener and the flowers adorning his casket were a fitting tribute.  Other arrangement included Santas and Santa hats.  Bud would have loved that.

Today Pigeon has one less cheerleader.

We're all lucky he was cheering for our team!