Have you ever tried to hang onto the telephone receiver and then try to retrieve file folders, a notebook full of historical information or any other information asked for when your files and records are in several rooms of your home? As I accumulated information it became harder and harder to keep it in one place at home. Trying to hang onto that receiver and handle heavy notebooks and boxes was a trial and disaster waiting to happen.

During the summer of 1993, I decided to put information in a notebook that could be handled when the phone rang with a request. This notebook has grown from one and a half inches to almost five inches in thickness. It is now in two notebooks, each three inches thick so there is room for more pages.

Categories in Book No. 1: History; Maps 1797-1998; Floating Bridge over Seneca River, 1834 (list of subscribers); vital stats, 1847-49; name indexes for: town officials, 1821-69; overseers of highways, 1821-69; road surveys, 1821-69; town officials, 1868-1819; overseers of highways, 1870-1906; Veterans, Revolutionary War to mid 1970s; jury list, 1893; old cemetery records; business directory, 1867-8, 1875-6, 1897-8; dog census, mid 1960s; agriculture, photos, stats, clippings, names and articles.

Categories in Book No. 2 include: People; Photos for T/Ira; Hamlets of Ira and Bethel; Town of Ira, includes fire departments, telephone companies, fire districts, voting districts, Lehigh Valley Railroad, electrical companies, Town of Ira highway department; miscellaneous; schools, from one-room to the present central school campus.

It took a lot of time researching, printing, categorizing and putting this notebook together. Additions are made periodically to update the notebook.

Another notebook for research is about the Town of Ira section of the village of Cato. This notebook is divided into roads East Main Street, North Street, north side of West Main Street, Maple Avenue, Mechanic Street, Conger Street. Information includes churches, businesses, buildings, photos of houses, etc. Another notebook had photos of the above mentioned places. It is amazing how fast and how much one accumulates about the history of the local area.

During the winter of 1998-99, many barns in the Town of Ira were partially or totally destroyed by the snow. My husband told me that I better get busy in the spring and take photos of what barns and out buildings that were left. So early in the morning, I would travel the roads of the town, many several times depending on the sunlight with two cameras. That spring of 1999 was great for taking photos. The result is a notebook of photos that is three inches thick. I divided the photos into four areas using roads as the main way to define the areas. Information is written on the back of them so folks can find about the places immediately. On sectional maps that show how I divided the photos up are numbers. These numbers identify owners/folks whose names are written on the back of the photos. I have included a few old photos in this collection. There is a permanent collection in the town's vault and a second copy in the History Room at the Municipal Building.

Do you know where to find cemetery records that were copied from the gravestones in the Town of Ira or any other town in Cayuga County? The History Room for the Town of Ira has a three-inch notebook full of cemetery records for the area in northern Cayuga County, except for the Town of Sterling. To go along with the cemetery records are obituaries. Most of the obits that are in the History Room are in a file of just obituaries. You would be amazed at who would like to know information that can be found in an obit. Example: Where are they buried? Where did the person pass away? Did they have any descendants, if so, where do they live? Folks that have the same last name, how are they related? Do you know what this person's parents' names are? Etc. Attorneys, folks researching their families, local folks that are curious to know if families with the same last name are related and on and on. I had a phone call just this week, “do you know anything about the families that had stained glass windows given in their memory at a local church?” In February, a letter came to the town clerk for Ira asking about the Town of Ira. A seventh grade student from Imperial, Neb. had seen the town's Web site on the Internet and wrote to us stating that it was in relation to an assignment from his social studies teacher to pick a place in the northeastern United States to get information about it. The task of answering the student's letter fell to me as historian. I typed for two hours and then hurried to the post office by 5 o'clock. I made it.

Local folks from the village of Cato, village of Meridian, towns of Ira and Cato or anyone else that is interested in finding out about northern Cayuga County can visit the History Room in the Town of Ira's Municipal Building on West Main Street in the Village of Cato. I am here on from 9:30 a.m. to early afternoons on Tuesdays and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays.

The phone number is 626-3444. Learning about local history is always fun and informative. Remember history is being made every day.

Dorothy Southard is the town of Ira historian