Christmas is going to be different this year. 2020 has been a difficult year of anxiety, separation, and loss and with the holidays, we should be looking forward to getting together with friends and loved ones to celebrate the season. Tintype image of Richard T. Bourns, a civil war soldier, dressed in a Union Army uniform posing against a painted backdrop of a Civil War camp, [...]
January 5, 1942 - March 21, 2019 Bette Duke on the beach in 2008 Creative, quirky, passionate and adventurous, Bette Duke of Little River passed away last month on the vernal equinox, March 21, 2019, as if she had planned the day. She was a long-time volunteer at the Kelley House, which allowed her to feed her passion of genealogy, history and artistic design all at [...]
Since 1850, more than 160 vessels have met their fate along Mendocino’s rugged coastline while the shouts of drowning sailors and passengers have been heard above the roar of the surf. The most famous shipwreck was the Frolic, a Baltimore clipper ship bound for California from China. A former opium runner between Bombay and Hong Kong, the bulk of the Frolic’s cargo now consisted of silks, [...]
The current exhibition at the Kelley House interpreting the 1970’s as an era of change has brought a great deal of unexpected interest. People want to share their stories. As a result, the Kelley House has received donations of clothes, photographs, posters, and albums for the exhibit. As word traveled, the Kelley House started receiving calls from outsiders wanting to come see the display and share [...]
Yearbooks for schools are valuable research tools, containing names and photographs of young people from their freshman to senior year of high school. We can learn what clubs they belonged to and what sports they played. We end up with a snapshot of time when they were young, good-looking, healthy and hopeful. Although the first Mendocino High School graduating class was 1896, the first yearbook was [...]
A group of several unidentified men and women, possibly residents of Fort Bragg, CA, stand in the doorway of a building. The building could have been located at the corner entrance to one of the hotels on Redwood Avenue. The number on the building appears to be 424. Speculation has been that it is a new business or, since the people look as if they are [...]
Maps are one of the oldest forms of nonverbal communication. Before humans were writing, they drew maps. Early maps may have only been a diagram in the dirt to show where to find food. As far as historians and geographers can determine, every culture in every part of the world uses and makes maps. The Kelley House has been collecting maps since 1973. In all shapes [...]