I was late as I headed for the museum and there seemed to be many extra cars in Polo. Then I realized it was garage sale day and there would be lots of activity in the community.

When I got to the museum Marilyn was there to pick up the letter for the Ogle County Historical Society and the anniversary. Have the rest of you written your letter for the capsule? Polo Historical Society’s letter is now turned in. I have a capsule up at Aplington House and I wonder what that was for? I need to check it out. I believe it is under a table.

The wedding dress of Fanny Schryver of 1906 has arrived and I was anxious to take a peek so we opened the big box. It was lovely and I hardly wanted to touch it. I am now researching a little more about Fanny. We will present the dress to Polo at our next historical society program on June 3. This will be when my daughter Krista gives the program on their trip to Italy, Spain, France, Portugal and other places.

We were still talking to Marilyn when David arrived from Naperville to work with glass negatives. Kevin found those in our files and some were of the White Pines State Park. This is David’s expertise and he will help us. When he started to explain light boxes and reverse images, I thought that Beth needed to be there so I gave her a call.

David still thought that I needed to know how all that worked when Ted came in and Phil Fossler. Phil wanted to tell us that the photo Kevin had put out on Facebook included his grandfather. So we made a note of that.

Beth soon arrived and she first wanted to take a peek at the dress. By that time Linda was there and they went to look at the dress as Steve Sorenson came in loaded with glass negatives. It seems that someone is tearing a house down in some other community and the house had glass negatives of houses of several communities, including Polo.

David started to work with Steve’s glass negatives and I am certain David was beginning to think that the museum was grand central station. As I began to look at all those houses, I was blown away at the clarity of the process of light boxes and reverse images. Glass negatives are priceless.

When Beth came in to meet David, they realized that they were in the same classes at Northern Illinois University many years ago and had the same teachers. How about that?

When we finally got to the White Pines glass negatives, we realized we did not have good pictures from those and David will take care of that. He will also take the glass negatives of the Polo homes and make good clear copies of those. David is a big help to the Polo Historical Society.

Soon it was the middle of the afternoon and I was exhausted. I had managed to pull out the file on the Schryver family and I will find out more about Fanny and the days she spent in Polo. I will put her life together at home where all is quiet.

• Betty Obendorf is a historian for the Polo Historical Society.