8/9/2019 Bob Gibler response
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Matt Mencarini
Sauk Valley Media
[email protected]
Matt,
Sorry I missed your calls but no one was home and I was out all
day and evening. I noticed the
article you wrote for Friday’s newsaer. !oefully you will also
ublish my side of the story
"ust as #uickly.
I have been gone from the historical society now for $% months
and is it not funny how &at
'orman wants to make this an issue during the last month before
elections. (hy wasn’t this ever
in the newsaer in those $) other months* I believe citi+ens and
voters alike can read between
the lines as to what is being brought forward.
gain as in my letter to the editor, this is a civil and not a
criminal matter. -o charges have ever
been filed, only letters of accusations sent to the Office
of Charitable Trust, and nothing of
substantive value has been determined from that office or
brought forward.
Mr. Gorman had never set foot in the historical society but for
two times prior to my departure.
He never looked through the building, did not know what files,
books, etc. that the historicalsociety contained, yet makes all
kinds of accusations and assumptions on what is missing
without knowing a thing. He stated, Most of the thousands
of digital records were lost, and of
the few that were recovered, many files were corrupted or
unusable.! One can accuse anyone ofanything but until you have
absolute proof, it is all con"ecture. Talk to members who
volunteered as to what records were kept and how research
was done, they will tell you.
#as the facility left in disarray$ %epending on who&s
point of view. 'tella Grobe, who was () years old at the time,
had members who came in whenever she was there *one day a week+
to
help her. They can attest that Mrs. Grobe kept them busy and
there was not time to put thingsaway in the upper floor rooms.
Things were untidy but she knew where everything was located.'he
remained there an additional si months after - left and nothing of
disarray was mention toher about this nor any letter to the editor
in the past two years.
ne member did an e/tensive amount of collecting comuter files,
mainly of old 0i/on
1elegrah newsaers. Some of which he would share with us when we
were seeking
information to forward to an in#uiry on a sub"ect. 1his member
later moved to the 0i/on
1elegrah office downtown to also assist the newsaer in archiving
old newsaers. 1he
information he gathered was not art of any !istorical Society
file gathering, although much of it
was shared at times of in#uiries. !e has since assed on and his
family has the comuters he
used.
For a number of years I wrote articles relating to a variety of
toics on history for the 0i/on
1elegrah. s such, I maintain any coyright or rorietary rights to
those media files and not
the !istorical Society. I have an e/tensive collection of books,
newsaer articles, ostcards and
