Why start another blog when there are a gadillion out in cyberspace? Friends have nagged me, history is something I love, and it’s expected, since I love to write. Need to write.

OK, so it’s compulsive.

Origins for the history bug: Aunt Marie (Marie Louise Duerrstein) was like a fairy godmother. (I’ll write about her some other time.) She was the curator of her museum, The Old General Store, where I hung out as a child and later had my first job. Living in the historic town of Galena, Illinois, one of the first boomtowns of the West, meant a life immersed in history. She talked history like nobody else. People came from all over the world to see her museum and listen. A movie was filmed in her museum, motion picture production crews contacted her for help when they filmed in and around Galena. All of it stemmed from her fascination with history.

To this day, there are people who live in Galena with no interest in its history, even though they reside in a state and federal historic site. I grew up immersed in it via Aunt Marie and felt it as a living thing every day I lived there. The connection was visceral, and that connection is what makes me look at everything that happens now and seek its connection to the past.

Next up, something about the regency period, since that’s what I’m writing now, we’ll do a comparison, men then vs. men now.