Past, present and future at Historical Society

KENT — Kent Historical Society (KHS) Executive Director Marge Smith spoke about the group’s own history to a meeting of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Kent on April 8.Smith arrived with several cartons filled with memorabilia from the KHS archives, which she spread out over three tables for people to inspect.Smith became involved with the KHS as a volunteer in 1999, about 50 years after it was started by a small group of women including Emily Hopson, several of her Hopson cousins and other prominent Kent residents. “In the early days,” she said, “not just anyone could join. One had to be invited by two members to apply.” Dues in those days were $5 per year.By 1999, Hopson was in her early 90s and the society was somewhat moribund. Smith became executive director in 2000 and began to modernize the way things were done. She started a newsletter for the society in 2000, which she credits with attracting 56 new members.The society puts on exhibits to share its collections with the public. Smith said the society has “an amazing costume collection, which is now properly stored in archival boxes on sturdy shelving.”The Historical Society revived an old-time tradition in 2003, with husking bees that were held annually for three years. The inspiration for the bees were photos Smith found of the square dances and husking bees held from the 1930s to the 1950s.Country Spice provided the music for the 21st-century bees. The band’s leader, Myrtle Hayden, had played at the old husking bees when she was a young fiddle player. In 2005, the Smithsonian Institution hosted an exhibit at Seven Hearths, the KHS-owned house museum on Route 7. Seven Hearths was also the site of a Historical Society ice cream social in celebration of National Ice Cream Day in 2007. That year, the society’s membership rose to 400 people.The first community-based exhibit was held in 2002, when the group borrowed items from local families to include in “A Tribute to our Veterans and Those Who Stayed Behind.” KHS board member Charlotte Lindsey worked on publication of a book by the Historical Society, “One Small Town in World War II.” “During the war,” Smith said, people wrote letters from Kent to service members “as morale boosters. Luckily, the Historical Society has most of those letters, which the service members brought back with them.” The book was published in 2004.The Historical Society is as involved with the present and the future now as it used to be with the past. Smith organizes programs with youngsters in Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts, who help keep the historic Skiff Mountain schoolhouse clean. There used to be a junior membership program for children; Smith is thinking about reinstituting that program in the near future.