This is the weather for soup and more hot chocolate as I stay huddled up in my chair. Alexa tells me the next day or two will not be any better as she warns people to stay in.

I will listen to her since my legs and feet do not do well in this freezing temperature. I did have to get out several times last week for meetings, doctor’s appointments, research at the museum, and the visitation for Jeanne Hose.

I had to tell Bruce that he was going in the wrong direction for the new quarters for the funeral home and I am certain others did the same thing. The old legion makes a great place for the Polo Funeral Home as we gathered there at the end of the week.

We were all out in Eagle Point for years and years and the Hose family took care of the roads for many years. I can remember at Susan’s wedding when we opened up the fence for the field next door, Rich came down and spray painted parking directions for cars. How cool was that?

The Hose family also took care of our farming and Rich called me to see what kind of a background did I want for the wedding? Did I want corn or beans and I decided on beans. I remember sitting out in the yard at the time of the wedding and looking up across the field at a golden crop of beans. I loved the look.

For years they also grew sweet corn and how I looked forward to the wonderful ears of yummy sweet corn. Linda kept me well supplied with corn on the cob. The years have gone by very swiftly and Jeanne, even in poor health, lived to her late 80s. She was always interested in history.

This week I had to go over to the museum and do a bit more research. Our Underground Railroad application has now been read by the readers and they asked a few more questions. Do we have absolute proof that the Delaware Colony group came to run the UGRR? It was as if they might have come for better farm land and more opportunities. But they had excellent jobs where they were and ended up being farmers here and did not do well at that new job. Also, remember that this was a subject that people kept quiet and did not talk about.

But we had people who wrote stuff down and I went back to the files of the Wamsely family. We had Jane Worden Ayers Wamsley who wrote pages and pages of family history by hand. She did not have a sparkly new computer to put all her notes down. It was all in her handwriting. She wanted all of us to know what had happened and the correct information is there.

Doris Vogel, who was an Ogle County historian, was a descendent of Solomon Shaver/Shafer and she was a sharp historian. She has all of her qualifications as a historian documented quite well with the state. I found what she had written and it goes right along with what we all believe. So that information will now be sent and we can hope that soon our application will be accepted by the United States as official.

It was John Waterbury, Solomon Shaver/Shafer, and William Wamsley that led the Delaware Colony group to Ogle County.

• Betty Obendorf is a retired teacher and volunteer for the Polo Historical Society.