These two photographs show just how important it is to catalog our old institutional photographs. Awhile back I posted on Fun Fact Friday about our figurehead Irma Bentley, that we discovered was carved in the likeness of Mrs. Irma (Bentley) Murray as a young girl. More can be read about that here. Our wonderful volunteer, Melissa, has since finished cataloging the photographs, and as I was thumbing though them I found a folder marked “Irma Bentley Program”. Apparently, when Irma visited the museum in 1983, she talked to a group of students about shipbuilding and figureheads, as pictured in the first image. The second image shows Irma with her great-granddaughter.

It is a blast going through these old photographs!