Actually, how about a thousand cheers?

Have you ever been greeted by a blizzard of confetti online while performing a simple task? Confetti, plus a message designed to send your heart soaring?

So it was with me this morning. The online celebration was for the one-thousandth clipping I’d snagged on the Newspapers.com site.

Totally unexpected and sort of embarrassing. (Maybe it’s a generational thing?)

There have been many news clippings over the years that have helped with family stories for this blog. Discoveries, even. Clippings have shown the way to photos where I had none, birthdates and burial dates, even letters home from overseas during wartime.

If only I’d known this great honor was about to be bestowed, I’d have chosen more wisely.

But here it is, the clipping of all clippings:

Why am I searching for clippings about the arrest of Charles Hoosier, you may ask?

It’s actually the Town Marshal I was after. He was the father of one of the two men who murdered Gary’s great-grandfather Henry Schum.

Gary and I are giving a little talk about Henry’s farm (Gary) and murder (me) at an upcoming reunion of the Mehling first-cousins. I figure they all know the basic story of the murder, so now I’m digging up the murderers, so to speak. (Gary already vetoed my idea to put together a reenactment, pageant-style. Sigh.)

And for this otherwise inconsequential clipping, Newspapers.com sent up a digital cheer, along with a quickly-disappearing message: You are now a historian! (I appreciate the encouragement, but this reminds me of the cringy “You are now an astronaut” stunt a year ago.)

Well, back to the salt mine … or coal mine, since we’re researching Henry Schum. Who knows what News Clipping #1,001 will bring!

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