My maternal grandparents, Tim and Helen Marsh spent a great deal of their time painstakingly working their way through the old records found at the Bedford County Courthouse in Shelbyville. There were literally heaps and piles of old records throughout the building (and there are still many more in the attic!). They started by gathering the oldest books and registers so that they could be put in one place for safe-keeping. The "vault" on the second floor became the primary location of the various court documents. My grandmother was a whiz at reading the old handwriting, and so she began creating an index of all the names within the large bound books in the vault. There must be 75 or more that she indexed. Most of the books are about 4 inches thick and have 4-500 pages. The time and effort that must have taken her astounds me. That doesn't count the myriad loose papers that she did. Her goal was to make sure that it would be easier for others to find those valuable little "gems" that might be that light bulb moment in their family research.
I remember visiting her in the vault as she was working. The smell in there is intoxicating to me. I don't know if is the smell itself, or that it holds so many precious memories of my grandparents. It is what I call, my "happy place." If they had a fragrance that copied that, I would be first in line to buy it! I know...I am strange.
My grandparents spent a lot of time helping with the Bedford County Archives and eventually, they named the vault in their honor.
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| "The Vault" Door Plaque |
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| Helen Crawford Marsh in the Bedford County Archives |
Move forward to around 2018 when I moved from North Carolina back home to Shelbyville. I now live in their house and have begun volunteering time as I can to help out with projects. Every time I walk into that space, I feel so at home. It is sometimes bittersweet, but it is something that I am very passionate about doing. I like to think that my grandparents are smiling down on me and that they are proud that I am carrying on in the tradition. I won't say footsteps...those shoes are way too big to fill. However, I hope that my contributions will also be appreciated for generations to come.
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| Melissa Michele Edwards in the Bedford County Archives. |
