My Story, Rebecca Briesmoore
I have ancestors on my dad's side of the family that lived in West Virginia. Oliver H. P. Washburn, my great great great great grandfather was one of the many people that helped to build the Weston State Hospital way back in the 1800s. He was a stone cutter, and was the one of the three highest paid people working on the building. He made $4.50 per day, only behind someone who made $4.75. He also had two sons who were "helpers" making $1.75 per day.
I went to West Virginia with my parents in 2004 on vacation. Dad was working on genealogy research at the HCPD library, and mom and I cruised around looking for glass shops and other tourist attractions. One day we were all in the tourist information office, just looking around, when we started talking to a woman named Susan Church, who worked there. We were interested in the Weston State Hospital, so she started telling us all about it, how the community was so sad because the hospital wasn't being used anymore, and because the tours were shut down because it wasn't safe. She told us how it's nicknamed the "Grand Old Dame," and how almost everyone in the town has a connection. Hearing about how passionate the community was about the building, I knew it wouldn't leave my mind. It didn't.
One and a half years later, I was planning my Girl Scout Gold Award project around that building, and I was blocking up boxes on my calendar for a trip to West Virginia. I knew I didn't have millions of dollars to restore this precious treasure and I knew the history and the facts about the building were all saved and documented already. But I had never heard of stories that had been documented, so that's where I focused.
I started by reading everything I could about the Weston State Hospital. I even did a research paper on it for an assignment in school. Then I got busy trying to get the information out that I wanted stories. It might not have been so hard, except that I live in Iowa, and the people and the building is in Weston, WV, over 700 miles away. I started by joining the e-mail mailing and conversation group with the Hacker's Creek Pioneer Descendents, a group that is passionate about genealogy and Lewis County history. I informed the list about my project, and got many encouraging replies and a few replies with stories along with them.
Time passed, and with only a few months to go until my trip to West Virginia, I cracked down on making connections with people there. With the help of some members of HCPD and google, I found two radio stations, the library, the tourism office, and the newspaper office, and made contact with them. I sent information to all of the sites, and sent a third person typed up newspaper article and a picture of myself to the Weston Democrat Newspaper, for them to publish. (Later, I found out that the newspaper article was printed, and they talked about me on the radio station, quite a neat experience for me, who had never had my fifteen seconds of fame before!)
Before I knew it, I was in the car with my mom on the way to West Virginia in high hopes. The first day of interviews was fun, I got to talk to Lucy Ann West, and her father, Damon. Also, I got a surprise interview with Marlene, a woman who knows a wealth of information about that building, and Joy Gilchrist Stalnaker, who has dedicated hours and hours into preserving and saving the Weston State Hospital. The rest of the week went by relatively quickly. I found out that just "beating the streets" was the best way to find people to talk too, after meeting a security guard on the hospital grounds, who was kind enough to let me on the grounds to take pictures. I spent the week meeting people, cold calling people, scanning pictures, and looking at information.
It was such a great experience to do this project. The people of West Virginia are so passionate and proud of their history, their home, and the hospital. They are also the friendliest people on earth. As one of the HCPD volunteers, Barb, told us, "You know you're a West Virginian when you call a wrong number and have a forty-five minute conversation!" My mom and I soon found out this was not an exaggeration. West Virginians are so friendly, and so happy to talk to anybody, even a complete stranger. It made my project so mush easier for me, and I really appreciate the kindness all the people there showed me.