1.0 Introduction

"Mom" Mary Frances Roberts December 13, 1914 - July 20, 2002

Frances Whelan's cousins, Mattie Lee Campbell and Mary James Masden sent her a copy of  'A Pictorial History of Meade County Kentucky' that contained many pictures of people she knew when she was growing up.  She couldn't easily find those people in the myriad of photographs and her frustration was beyond description.  I looked through the publication and decided, with the help of a scanner and the computer, I could put together a smaller, more compact, book of just her friends and relatives.

Her cousin, Alice Scott, kindly made me an invaluable list identifying those persons, and I started the new publication. One thing led to another and I included stories told to me about those days when Mom was a child and young girl. She could now find people she knew and recalled those times. Photographs from Mom's private collection, that personalized the endeavor, were included.

Short term memory grows less reliable as one grows older, but great joy is experienced as friends, cousins, classmates and teachers they knew many years ago are brought to mind. 

Mom liked to share her memories with friends and having the pictures to share made the stories more vivid and enjoyable to her and to her friends. 

The person who benefitted beyond description was me. By putting a book together for Mom, I was privy  to information about my ancestors I might never have learned. I especially thank Alice Scott who has never hesitated to give me answers far beyond the questions I asked. Her foresight in writing what she remembered about her grandparents (and my mother's) gave me personae  for my great grandparents and their contempories  from long ago that might have been lost to time.

-Anna Doris Whelan Shanks

2009

I am a person who has also benefitted from this book. Seeing the people and collection information about them has been an eye-opening experience for me. This book is an attempt to capture the original book that my mother put together for my grandmother. We hope that it will serve as a remembrance and a gateway to those who might use it as a launching pad to learn more about those Powells, Dows, Corbetts and Whelans of Meade County, Kentucky.

-Jesse W. Shanks III

2010