Hello, it has been a while since we have had anything worthwhile to update you on. Our great friend, Dr. Christopher Esing sent a message on Facebook after discovering a picture of Rebecca and O.K. Holmes in the newspaper. As you know I haven’t had much of an opportunity to continue my newspaper research lately. But the kind gentlemen spotting it doing his own researched and share. The original newspaper binders have been located and are in the storage area in the Lake City Reporter building. I went over to try and get a clearer picture using my iPhone and the original paper. He and his two friends, Chris Williams and Chris Lydick, have been going into the area to try and salvage as many of the books as they can. Seems there was a roof leak and some of the books are in bad shape. The technology for scanning today is much, much better than when it was originally done in the 1970s. Hopefully, they may be able to get, “Text Searchable” PDFs of each of the newspapers books in the future.
Back to my picture below. This was taken from the Newspaper and from the description it was at the Annual Christmas Party so that would be sometime in December 1947 at the Woman’s Club. And the photographer listed was Bill Roy. If there is anyone who knows where I could get a copy of the originals or the actual photographs I would greatly appreciate it. I have been trying various software packages to try and clean up the newspaper print but am having no luck.
Please, get in touch and share your stories of the Blanche Hotel, the people of the Blanche Hotel and any history you would like to share about the Blanche Hotel. CONTACT US If there are any historians in charge of the pictures and stories of the Elk, Rotary, or Kiwanis Clubs that would be willing to share their pictures and stories about either Rebecca Holmes or her brother O.K. that would be swell. I would like to create a fun and informative history of this pair of Manager/Owners as well as any of the others throughout the years.
Update on Fiction and Non-Fiction Stories
Until I can get some more research material and, more importantly, pictures of each of the Managers and their spouses who lived and worked at the Blanche Hotel the non-fiction book is on the back burner for now. The fiction book I am currently enjoy writing is coming to a, hopefully, very satisfying conclusion. Again, with all of our personal happenings in the last 2 years we are all pretty much behind. But, you can read the first couple of chapters on my WATTPAD account. It is turning into a fun, mysteries, suspense and may be even a light romance novel. I include real people from Lake City in the story as side characters just to make it a little more interesting. The climax will happening during one of the city’s and the Blanche’s Major Events in 1903 – “The Virginia Newspaper Editors Convention”.
You must be logged in to post a comment.