The McDonough County Retired Teachers launched their 2026-27 school year with its September 11 meeting at Trinity Lutheran Church. Co-President Barry Witten led those present in the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence in memory of the events of September 11, 2001.
Guest speaker was noted local historian Julie Terstriep. She had addressed the group last May, recounting the history of Camp Ellis. This time she shared her experiences as an historical transcriptionist, which involves the conversion of handwritten or otherwise obscure printed documents into conventional printed text.
An avid historian, Terstriep had come across an article in a 2014 publication from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. It was seeking volunteers to help read and then transcribe over 30,000 documents from the Civil War era. She went on-line, signed up, and received training in handling, deciphering, and electronically recording original written records using the library's software and hardware.
Anyone viewing original documents from over a century ago soon discovers the diversity of penmanship and paper. Consider soldiers from the Civil War scribbling messages to loved ones back home in primitive battle-field conditions. Scraps of paper, stubs of pencils, dented pen nibs, ink bottles — these were the Facebook and Instagram tools of their day. Deteriorating creased paper, perhaps dampened or soiled before it ever reached the intended readers, would have to endure centuries of storage. All this makes the job of transcribing more challenging.
Terstriep noted that the handwriting of public documents — census report, property descriptions, tax records, legal proceedings — likely adhered to the Spencerian script techniques taught in schools. She showed an image of the Spenserian alphabet, reminiscent of the cursive upper case and lower case alphabets above school chalkboards, as well as several documents from the 1800s. They often displayed elaborated capital letters, a forward slant to the words, and flourishes that turned ordinary pen and ink text into a work of art.
