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Living in Calgary for the past 22 years has giving me a sense of pride and connection to this amazing city…my entire career is here, we have roots here our daughter born here. I wanted to learn more for this Calgary based podcast so I ventured down to the Central Library and decided to do some research on our history…being born in 1977 I thought I’d start in this era…being a novice crime enthusiast I was attracted to crime in the 1970’s but mostly Calgary history weather crime of interesting facts that I found.
Contact Us
- Calgary Public Library
- 616 Macleod Trail S.E.Calgary, Alberta
After learning how to run the microfiche machine – which was a lesson in itself,
then I figured out how to translate it through a standard PC…ahhh more comfortable here
Checking out the microfiche film from 1977 January 1-10. As London sat beside me and helped run the microfiche machine. I scoured through many articles to see if anything caught my eye…
I learned very quickly a few hours to be exact that I require many hours at this to a be good at it and b actually find what I’m looking for…one thing about the central library is – it has culture. From the people to the back stairs to the location.
Being centrally located just off the C-Train (LRT) and Macleod trail se you see all walks of life and get a few life lessons along the way. In November Calgary we will be in grand style with our new state of the art central Library.
After I spent a few hours at the Microfiche machines I spoke to one of the workers there who by the way was most helpful and asked about local history- low and behold there’s a local history room…
Room: it’s not dark and dank but it’s older and lighting is okay but a bit minimal
Desks: oak, oak and oak, large library desks excellent for spreading out and completing research
Smell: like it’s got some years under it’s belt, paper and dust and a bit of stale air
look: oak again, large oak book cases, burgundy low pile carpet and vertical metal filing cabinets with a small thumb bottom to move the lock switch over to open the drawers – one drawer at a time.
feel: cultural and history, encyclopedias, maps, and books of course, news paper clippings
We needed to enter in by a trusted door password which they assist getting you into this room. Once inside I discovered miles of upright metal filing cabinets and book shelves and giant wide desks made out of oak. The lady showed London where the scratch papers and pencils were – which she utilized to the fullest – we are set to investigate and gather some history.
I started looking through the fronts of these filing cabinets and then I found what I was looking for..
then I looked for the years and pulled out these amazing envelopes, London was so intrigued by the newspaper clippings as was I. The neatest thing was all of the cursive handwriting was done by the same person, the Librarian and in pencil.
These are all stamped with a typical date stamp in several colours of blue and red all cut up by scissors…I was enthralled in what I found. Browsing through to see what grabbed my attention…two stories over and over came up so these are the two I’m going to start with.
First: Constable William (Bill) Shelever – rookie cop who died too soon on the job, he started as a Welder and then worked hard to become a cop “a chance to do something”. A story about a guy who loved what he did, was honest and died too soon.
Second: A Cold Case about Two girls found dead at age 14 Patricia McQueen and Eva Dvorak ironically under the Happy Valley Overpass just west of Calgary. This case has never been solved.
Thanks for Listening to the podcast and let me know what you think by leaving me a comment/rating on iTunes, stitcher, google play, blubrry and tuneIn radio or wherever you get your podcasts.
Photos curtesy of me Valerie Moss and spending the day at the Central Library, article writers will be given credit to in a future episode and thank you to the library as I haven’t been there since I was a kid and the ones I was in back then were in my small town schools. This library made me feel more a connection to this great city. Coming across these two articles over an over stood out to me.
The intro and outro for this podcast is recorded by London Moss. The music for this show is written and produced by Jason Schnell, titles Tascam 40.
The podcast is produced by me Valerie Moss, through Garage Band and WordPress.
Thanks for Listening.