Rooting around in history
Toolbox
Published: September 25, 2006
WATERBURY — Linda Kaiser can't help it. It's her compulsion. It is, dare it be said, her obsession. What started out as a 50-page leaflet recording the names and faces of area men who volunteered and served in the Civil War has ended as a full-blown genealogical guide.
"I love research," she said, "and the more research I did, the more I uncovered."
The result is "Civil War Volunteers from Waterbury, Vermont and Duxbury," which will soon be released. She hopes the tome, geared toward descendents and scholars alike, makes quick work of researching the tumultuous period in Green Mountain history.
The Waterbury Public Library's resident genealogist, Kaiser has volunteered in one form or another there since 1984, ascending to assistant librarian in 1993.
In addition to tapping a wealth of in-house memorabilia (the library houses a museum on the second floor), Kaiser, who is also the Waterbury Historical Society's co-president, perused the special collections at UVM and put a call out to area residents for family documents and photographs. Some 148 pages later, the booklet became a thoughtfully compiled link to the past.
"I started looking at the lister's census, and then I thought about the genealogy," she says.
Young men like William Wills and William Henry, area soldiers and Congressional Medal of Honor winners, leaped from the pages for Kaiser, making the project a living chronicle of Waterbury-Duxbury soldiers and their families.
All proceeds from the sale of the book go right back to the historical society, said Kaiser. As to a second volume? "I don't know," she says. "After I was done, people came to me who had found out I did the book and they'd say, 'Oh, I have diaries, I have letters,' and I was thinking, 'Why didn't I see these before?'"
A book release party is planned for Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Waterbury Public Library, and Kaiser's book, priced at $25, will be available for purchase. Call 244-7036 for more information.
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