Williamson County Illinois Historical Society

President, Sam Lattuca, inducts WHCS members, Mary Jean and Clarence DeMattei into the WCHS Honor Roll

A recently adopted award for the Williamson County Historical Society got its first inductees last week. The award called the WCHS Honor Roll is awarded in appreciation of dedicated service to the society. It serves as a reminder of the amount of hard work and dedication that some of our volunteers put into the society.

Husband and wife team, Mary Jean and Clarence DeMattei have both been dedicated workers at the museum for the last 13 years and are good examples of the Honor Roll’s reason for existence. Mary Jean served as museum curator and Clarence has served as a board member since 2003. Mary Jean often spent her time cleaning and taking care of displays while Clarence took care of the physical maintenance on the building.

The society can’t thank them enough for their selfless service over the years, but we can honor their service and selflessness.

We recently completed a project on our agenda, the movement of our old book store into a new location more accessible in the foyer. The old book store used to occupy a 12 x 7 foot room all by itself which we have future designs on for use as a first floor bathroom and a utility closet with a utility sink. Two new lights were added to the foyer which has always been too dark and equipment was moved away to install more compact newspaper racks and shelving which condensed all of our book store into a more compact but usable space.

Our old book store always seemed to be missed by visitors because it was out of sight. Now that the book store is right at the entrance our books and offerings will be hard to miss. There is also a bench seat conveniently beside the steps which means visitors can sit and peruse the books before buying. The change has created a much more open and well lit entrance to the museum.

This also gave us the chance to inventory our stock. The society plans on making more of an effort to advertise what books we have on hand for sale. At the moment we do offer a list under the Book Store Tab on the website and we plan on running specials on select books in the near future.

The Williamson County Historical Society was recently contacted by Magilla Entertainment in New York. They are a production company working on a show for the Discovery Channel which will feature a short history package on Charlie Birger and the Shelton Brothers Gang. The production company is in the process of securing licensing on historic support photos for the feature.