by Linda Wilson The Kelley House Museum Lawn Party and Barbeque tradition continues this year on Monday, July 4, offering the BEST parade viewing spot in town, directly across from the judging stand and announcer. This is the spot where parade participants “strut their best stuff” to impress the judges. The party starts an hour prior to the parade, at 11:00 a.m., leaving time to claim [...]
Sunday, June 26th, 2016, Lorraine Hee-Chorley, local author and resident historian of the Chinese community, will present a discussion of the history of the Chinese in Mendocino at the Kelley House Museum's "Sunday Afternoon With . . ." program. From the popular "Images of America" series Arcadia book, written by Ms. Hee-Chorley, and titled Chinese in Mendocino County, we have the following: "Lorraine Hee-Chorley, [is] a [...]
“Chinese Contributions to Mendocino: A Promise Kept” is the title of our next “Sunday Afternoon With . . . Lorraine Hee-Chorley” to be held at the Kelley House Museum on Sunday, June 26th at 4:00 p.m. As many locals know, Lorraine Hee-Chorley dedicated much of her time and talents to the preservation of her family’s roots, and those of other Chinese pioneers who settled here in [...]
The Aircraft Warning Service (AWS) was a civilian service of the United States Army Air Force Ground Observer Corps begun during World War II to keep watch for enemy planes entering United States airspace. The Kelley House Museum has a few photographs and one archival item to help us remember those days. This photograph captured the images of Syd Newman, Lena Meshishnek and Faye Lang at [...]
Sunday, June 12th, 2016 the Kelley House presents a talk by Dr. Elmano Costa of California State University, Stanislaus titled "Hooked to America - the Whaling Industry's Influence on Portuguese Immigration." Dr. Costa has been a professor of Teacher Education and the Director of Portuguese Studies at CSU Stanislaus since 1995. Dr. Costa has personal experience as an immigrant, having come to the Central Valley of [...]
We recently received a request from the daughter of this handsome guy, and it represents a switch in that we know who the person is, but we don’t know for certain WHERE he is. The WHEN is also somewhat undetermined, but she thinks the photograph was taken around 1930. This is Clifford Chapman, who attended Mendocino High School and worked in the Mendocino Mill. Clifford’s daughter, [...]
By Katy Tahja There’s nothing I like better than to read old Mendocino Beacons in the archives of the Kelley House. Only problem is that they’re bound in hardback by year and these big books are difficult to handle and fragile with age. The solution? Nannie Escola, an early Mendocino historian, regularly clipped the “25, 50, 75, 100 Years Ago…” columns from the Beacon and wrote [...]
Since the very beginning, back in 1973, the organization which was initially known as Mendocino Historical Research and which evolved into the Kelley House Museum, has been fueled by volunteers. We’d like to thank today’s volunteers, right here and now! They serve in numerous capacities, including, mailing party members, museum docents, walking tour guides, July 4th chefs and servers, research office assistants, web master, newsletter designers, [...]
On the surface of it, there may not seem to be a lot of interaction between the topic of the Kelley House Museum’s new exhibit, immigration, and the lumber industry here on the North coast, however, without an influx of immigrant labor, there may not have been an industry. From the very beginning of the operations of the Mendocino Lumber Company’s mill, immigrant workers were hired, [...]