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Scholze just graduated from Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, and hopes to get a job teaching history or social studies. Meanwhile, she is continuing the volunteer work she began last summer converting binders full of typewritten descriptions documenting the HAHS archives into computer form and taking digital pictures of each item in the archives.
While it might be a little tedious at times, Scholze also has found her archival work fascinating. At the next meeting of the HAHS, she’ll share some of the treasures she’s found in the basement of Holmen Village Hall.
“We have such a variety packed into this little room,” said Scholze, who works with two other archivists — Ruth Clarkin and Barbara Brown.
Her talk will feature 18 items from the HAHS archives, including things that people might not think would have historical value, such as plumbing fixtures, a toaster and a hair crimper.
“Anything that a person has could have historical value,” Scholze said.
The historical society would welcome donations of older everyday items, Scholze said, such as clothing items, and photographs that document the people and buildings and events of the Holmen area.
“Pretty much anything is open game,” she said. “Pictures are always wonderful.”
Scholze also will talk about some of the real treasures she has come across in the archives, such as an American centennial flag from 1776 that once belonged to Melvin Thompson, a Holmen resident who died in World War I.
Perhaps the most interesting treasure, which she hadn’t yet fully explored, was six packets of letters she found in a shoebox written by Orlin Tolvstad when he was a soldier during World War II. Some of the addresses on the envelopes indicate Tolvstad served in the European theater.
Scholze’s talk also will likely spend some time on Holmen High School band attire — hats, in particular. The HAHS has a box full of white fuzzy marching band hats that Scholze thinks date to the 1970s and the HAHS is selling the surplus hats as a fundraiser.
In addition to digging into the Holmen archives, Scholze also might spend some time at the HAHS meeting talking about her research into Aaron Burr, vice president under Thomas Jefferson and best known for killing political rival Alexander Hamilton in a dual.
Long fascinated with Burr, Scholze cracked the code Burr used to write a letter to his son-in-law after the dual, something nobody had been able to do before. She said she used the “Wheel of Fortune” method, looking for the most commonly used letters in the letter and matching them with the most commonly used letters in general.
“I got lucky and it worked out,” said Scholze, who plans to tackle another untranslated Burr letter.
Scholze would really like to see more people getting involved in the historical society, particularly younger people, and she’s hoping the archives will continue to grow. The historical society’s big goal, she said, is to get a building where Holmen’s historical treasures can be displayed before the village sesquicentennial in 2012.
“Holmen really has a lot of history with the schools, the sports teams, the businesses,” she said.
Contact Randy Erickson at randy.erickson@lee.net or 786-6812.
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