Hi, I’m Glenn. For 24 years I ran a small county history museum in upstate New York, and the question I heard most at the front desk was “Did kids really wear these?” Usually, yes. Families just didn’t keep the clothes, because the next kid wore them too.
What I write about
Where my stories come from
I grew up in my grandparents’ 1894 farmhouse near Oneonta, New York. Upstairs had no heat except an iron grate above the kitchen stove, and my brother and I still argue about who got the bed closest to it.
The museum piece visitors stopped at most was a pair of children’s mittens from 1911, darned at both thumbs. They came in a box of canning jars.
How I write
My memories are my own. Everything else comes with a source, and when a story is better than the evidence, I say so.
Off the clock
My grandfather taught me to look twice at old postcards, and I still do. I’m always happy to hear what’s in your family’s attic.
How we check our stories: Editorial Standards and Ethics.
The oldest photograph in our museum was an 1850s portrait of a farmer who had been told to hold still for half a minute, and his face says exactly what he thought of that. Visitors grinned at him every day for 24 years. These 12 historic firsts were caught on camera, from the first selfie to the first photo of Earth from space, and each one has a story.
The deed for my grandparents’ 1894 farmhouse uses a sugar maple as a boundary marker: “the large maple at the north corner.” The maple is still there, and the surveyor who checked the line in 1979 called it the only marker that never moved. These 12 trees are far older, from a spruce whose roots go back 9,500 years to a cypress that 30 people holding hands can’t reach around.
