Merry Wanderer of the Night + TIME

Figure It Out: Internship Week Two

This week I finally got to put my notes into Microsoft Access rather than write them on a legal pad. I love legal pads, but I found I made much more specific notes when I was working on the computer because there were actual fields for me to fill out. Working with the personal papers is pretty interesting, but I don't know about so much of the stuff sometimes it can be frustrating. And some of the files are just repeats of letters addressed to different people, but I don't know that's all that is in there until I go through the entire file. I think I mentioned this last week, but I find the death certificates a lot more interesting. Today I actually started to see the same names repeated. I saw what I assumed was the grandfather in the family died from a heart attack, and then a few months later his 18-year-old grandson died in an automobile accident. This was actually really interesting, because the death year was 1924 so cars were fairly new at that point. I'm sure it was a really scary experience for the family when they realized how dangerous cars actually were.

This is an example of a Canadian death certificate, which I obviously don't work with, but it gives you an idea of the kind of fun I have deciphering handwriting!

I worked by myself quite a bit this week, but I'm getting to know my coworkers a little bit more. Today I went out to lunch with all of them to a great Greek restaurant downtown. Afterward we went to an antique shop called Found Things where I spotted a table I kind of want to buy. I really like the idea of just leaving in the middle of the day for an hour and visiting some of your favorite places in downtown Des Moines. The State Historical Society is at a great location with quite a few neat restaurants and shops near it. On Tuesday I went to a used bookstore that I pass on my way to work, but I was sadly disappointed with the selection. And for how little they did have I thought they were incredibly overpriced. Maybe I'm just spoiled by The Haunted Bookshop in Iowa City. They are extremely fair in their pricing.

Speaking of Iowa City, today I was going through University of Iowa brochures from the 1980's and I just couldn't help but get lost in them for about an hour. I almost started crying when I saw all of these familiar places that I miss so much. I really do miss Iowa City and I think I'm starting to annoy my parents with talking about it all the time. On the bright side, that is one of the great things about working in the archives. It's so easy to get lost in a file and try to put together the story of what exactly did happen. It seems like I find at least one thing every day that I'm fascinated by. I'm taking a little notebook with me to work to jot down some of the most interesting ones, and then I try to look up more information about them later.

Check out my post from week one if you haven't already.

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Figure It Out: Internship Week Two + TIME