Week 5: Wrapping Up My First Collection

Benson Junction Train Station and the Benson Junction Post Office

I had quite a few tasks to cover this week, and it all seemed to have magically flown before my eyes. Starting at the beginning of the week, I waited for Ethan to email me about any updates from his meeting with the historic board of DeBary; by Tuesday, I was overjoyed that they had quickly gotten in contact with Ronald Muse to ask about a man who frequently appeared in the collection and another artifact that I was simply not sure about its context. According to Mr. Muse, the man in the archaeological photographs was Jack Beall, who was not an archaeologist as I initially suspected. He conducted all of his digging as a hobby and did not document any of his findings. This is unfortunate, as the collection contained weapons and tools that could have been useful for research purposes. Granted, this answered my nagging question as to why I could not find a single article about it online, especially with significant findings such as three whole skulls, two of which were from Stone Island. This also leads me to believe that the artifacts he found are still part of a private collection. Another piece of information I was given pertained to a building featured on a single artifact. The people were consistently pictured on the outside of the building, leading me to wonder about its significance. The building turned out to be the Benson Junction Train Station and the Benson Junction Post Office, which shared the building, most likely photographed around the 1930s-1940s.

Jack Beall on the left

In my search for more information about Jack, I came across a republished version of his obituary from the Orlando Sentinel, which also featured an article about the death of Charles Richard Beall. From there, I could figure out he was born in 1931 and insert some of his ages in the metadata sheets from artifacts that included a date. Since I did not personally speak to Ronald Muse, I was concerned because I had not asked him one of the biggest mysteries to me: how his family was connected to the Beall family. Fortunately, in doing that search, it was spelled out to me that Ronald was Jack’s stepson.

After processing this new information, I took a day to review both artifacts and sheets I had already uploaded to Teams for any gaps that needed to be filled in. Before starting this assignment, I did not consider how much analysis would be required, but it has only helped me grow in identifying small details when grasping for connections. The amount of zooming in and revisiting artifacts I have done surprised me, but it has truly been worth it. For example, some sheets could have gone without names if I had not identified Jack’s skull tattoo when he stood further away.

VFW Women’s Veterans Day event, courtesy of Katarina

UCF Table Group Photo, courtesy of Ethan

She Served Posters

She Served - In Memoriam Poster

On Thursday, I attended the Women’s Veterans Day event from 9:30 to 1:00. I was glad to meet up with two other interns, Ethan and Brooke, who helped promote the public history programs at UCF and encouraged the veterans to share their stories with us by leaving their contact information to reach out at a later time. We had a minimal amount of time to talk with the attendees compared to their main event, which was held in another part of the building, where our table was located behind closed doors. The three of us also spent some time helping a veteran from Afghanistan set up her easels and posters, which were displayed across the room for the event. She explained that the posters were a part of the She Served Initiative, commemorating the stories of veteran women. Everyone at the event was very friendly, and I met a woman who had served in World War II, hoping to find more women from that war. By luck, I got to witness a special moment for her when she met another woman who was in the Navy, and I could tell it was a great bonding moment for them.