Recently someone said the temperature was to get up in the 40s and someone else said 50s.

Right away, I wondered when do we start looking for robins?

Also I got out to do some shopping and found out in the store were seeds and spring planting materials. That is a good sign that robins will soon be hopping around in my yard and it is time to bring in my snowman.

Before I start thinking spring, I have to finish up on winter projects such as the application for the Underground Railroad. This past week Beth and I have been looking again for something the readers of our application have asked for. The application is now at the next level and somewhere people are reading it and they want more material.

It reminds me of placing a historical building on the National Register of Historic Places. When we gathered at Springfield all the readers of your application were there to ask questions. They have been reading all of your material and you hope you can answer all of their questions. The readers are from many different places in the state.

The readers of our Underground Railroad application are probably from an entire region of the United States. They wanted to know more about John Brown being in the area. They also suggested that we do a whole new application on Henry Elsey, who is buried in South Elkhorn Cemetery. Also they would like another application done on Maria Waterbury, who went south to teach in the government’s Freedman Bureau program.

Our heads are spinning because we really want to get our original application accepted by the United States before we start another. Also waiting in the wings is the book on the White Pines State Park that we want to start and get finished by 2027. Beth is working as fast as she can on all of this.

Linda has started collecting all the information on Henry Elsey and she came across another article written by him but could not find what newspaper the article came from. I looked at it and quickly said it came from his scrapbook.

Linda said, “What scrapbook.” I later went over to the museum and dug out the original scrapbook of all his writings that is very fragile. All the articles have been copied off and the scrapbook has been placed in a special container.

Beth told me when she spoke in Dixon on the UGRR recently a member of Elsey’s family spoke of journals he might have written. They may have been referring to his scrapbook instead of journals. We also have his manuscripts he had written, in special containers. Henry was quite a writer and we will at some time honor him and what he has contributed to the history of our area. It takes time to accomplish all we would like to do.

Right now I am working on the Waterbury program, which will be given in the spring and I am watching out my window for the first robin as I type away on my computer.

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