Meeting Michelle Brooks & More

By Drew Doebelin

My classes have just begun for the semester and as I'm going through introductions, it's reminded me of how many cool things I've gotten to do with the historical society so far! 

Drew Doebelin and Aurora Padget showcasing their display boards at Michelle Brooks' First to Freedom Book Signing and Presentation.

Last week Aurora and I finished up the display boards for the Callaway U.S.C.T, and I'm really appreciative of her amazing art skills and the way she organized the information, it was such a great help to work with her! We had the boards set out at the book signing on Saturday and it was very wonderful to meet author Michelle Brooks, I feel even more inspired to continue to work hard on this project.

Michelle Brooks and Drew Doebelin

I also really enjoyed getting to hear how her research has helped others with their genealogy searches, and that's what I hope I can do too! She gave me a signed copy of her book 'First to Freedom', which has been a great inspiration to read through as well! (Thank you so much Michelle!)

A Slice of Callaway honors a Century Farm Family and we have a pie auction to fund our Educational Grant Fund for Local Schools. This year it is at the Baumgartner Family Farm in Millersburg on Sunday, September 13, 2026.

We are having a couple more events come up pretty quickly one after the other, like the 'Slice of Callaway' event. I helped print and glue some of the information about the Baumgartner family onto display boards, and learned how to laminate using our posters and pie labels. I'm really craving pie now...

One of our picture props Drew helped make.