SONOMA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Sonoma County History Annex


Meeting called to order by President Tony Hoskins

Board members present: Jeremy Nichols, Harry Lapham, Creighton Bell, Simone Wilson, Tony Hoskins, Ron Davis, Sean Bressie, Lee Torliatt and Susan Burns and Kathy Fitzpatrick.

Secretary’s Report: Minutes of July Meeting were accepted. Roberta Harlan is out with a back injury; requested Susan Burns take the minutes.

Presidents Report:

Stewarts Point Rancheria of the Kashia Pomo
Tony is working with the Kashia Pomo tribe at Stewarts Point Rancheria to establish a library on the reservation. The reservation is 40 acres has a small population of sixty-eighty people. There is a k-8 school on site. Under consideration is the use of an existing house for the library; there is a security issue to using this house on the reservation because of previous vandalism.

The Government Oral History Project:
The next oral interviews will be with Evee(sp) Lewis on October 30th. The interview will be on DVD’s available at the Sonoma County Library Annex

Mary Moore Collection
Mary Moore is a local activist who resides in West County, was referred to SCHS by Gaye Le Baron. Lee and Jeremy are currently going through the collection and photo copying Mary’s collection to put into the Archives at the library. Simone has shot photos and written articles with/about Mary and will be going through her collection to see what she can also bring in.

Possible Sonoma County historical research class online.
Tony did a research class with the Historical Records Commission on line. Tony is looking to see if he can set up a research class in Sonoma County.

Treasurer’s Report:
Written report; treasurer not present.

Membership Report:
Creighton will be instructing Susan Burns on how to take over the membership data base and the membership duties. Creighton would like to send letters to members whom we have not seen in a while to get them back. Possibility of membership drives.

Archivist’s Report:
Lee is receiving a fair number of requests for back issues of the newsletter. He needs to have the complete addresses from the website requests before he can process the requests. Lee currently has to email the requestor to get the complete mailing address.

Lee is also gathering information for the Japanese History Project.

Cemeterian’s Report :
The old Sonoma County hospital painting has been cleaned and consolidated. The painting should be ready by mid October. They are looking for a frame if none is found the old frame can be used. Jeremy is hoping to have the painting for the next meeting.

The number of Chanate found markers is now greater than 1,000. United Way’s day of caring provided 29 people who cleaned the cemetery and found more markers after the debris was out of the way. A couple more years of cleaning and the cemetery will be finished.

Tombstone amnesty; The Souza headstone was from Fernwood Cemetery in Marin. Fernwood was abandoned after 12 years, and the records were lost. The list of names from tombstones is from the 1970’s. The Cemetery will take it back and try to figure out which family and where it should be going.

The tombstone for Thompson, Thompson lived west of Petaluma. At this time waiting for the death certificate from Los Angeles and should say where Thompson is buried so the Tombstone can be placed there.

Spring Hill Cemetery was legally adopted by county. California Saving Graves fights to preserve old rural graves. Sonoma County is the first to recognize its obligation under the State law to take abandoned cemeteries. Volunteers will do the work at the Cemetery as part of the Sonoma County Parks dept.

Journal Report:
Next issue will feature:
The raft trips by Devere (sp) Baker. Devere was a Mormon who took 4 raft trips attempting to prove that the Semites from the Middle East floated to the West Coast of America 600 BCE. Between1954-1959 Devere left Petaluma 3 times headed toward Hawaii he did not make it. The fourth trip left from Redondo Beach and made it to Hawaii in sixty nine days.

Ernie Nevers who was Football player

John Cummings

Comstock House; Marty Comstock Keegan has histories of the Comstock
House located at 767 Mendocino Ave.

Committee Reports:
Website:
Name registration is due, cost is nine dollars per year, and if purchased in a ten year block the registration is cheaper; website hosting will move to a larger server, the company is in San Jose. Additionally, the website will be copied and moved to the new server. The new server is fifteen dollars a month. We will have unlimited domain names and two hundred times the current space. More space will allow more content to be on the site.

New Business:

Sean has multple Burbank items of the Attic of Hogue house. There is the possibility of the Hogue House lending items, documents and art. There is an original Shaw photo which was signed by Burbank.

The bird’s eye and atlas are also on our website for sale.

Heritage Network
Next meeting is October 14, 2006 at the Bocce call room at the Union Hotel in Occidental. Gail Unzermun (sp) author of Sonoma County’s wineries. (Harry purchased forty copies of the book.) The meeting may possibly adjourn after lunch regroup at the Lapham Ranch. At the Lapham Ranch there will be a discussion of the tan oak disease. The Tan oak was a large money earner the bark was used for charcoal, cordwood was sold to the railroads, the small limbs were used by Italian Charcoal makers. It was suggested that an arborist come out to look at the trees during the presentation. The Fairfield Osborne Preserve may also have someone who can come out to check for the disease. Other trees and plants can carry the disease.

Pacific Coast Air Museum
Pearl Harbor has two buildings it will convert to museums on will be for WWII and the other will be for later wars.

Read Roberta’s suggestions and be ready to discuss next meeting

Selling the local histories with the Atlas’ Tony will give to Harry to sell.

Lee will create a back issue list of the journals he has for posting on the website and also add to the journal.

The museum has eleven boxes of the Nagasawa material. Lee is helping to sort out the materials

Creighton suggested setting the date for the annual banquet and picnic soon so as not to compete with other events around the county. As soon as the dates are picked we need to let the other county organizations what it is so we can all attend other events and our events will have a higher turn out. Tentative Banquet date Saturday March 24, 2007; please bring speaker proposals to next meeting.
Cathy Owen has been put forth as a possible presenter at the banquet.

Harry will receive an Award from the City of Santa Rosa at 7:00 pm on Monday November 13, 2006 at Santa Rosa City Hall.

Harry reported that he took Atlas’ to SSU Northwest information station for them to look at and to possibly purchase. Harry needs federal tax id # to get paid by SSU. The director liked the atlas’ and will probably purchase one for SSU. The map store in Windsor sent a check for 5 more Atlas’.


Next meeting date: October 19, 2006 will be a dinner meeting. It maybe changed to October 26, 2006 so Lee may attend. Harry is setting up the particulars.