Saving Memories

Martha Groves McKelvie Movie Columnist Martha Groves De Arnold was born in Missouri in 1886. When she was five, she and her parents moved to Nebraska. In 1903 she graduated from the Lincoln Conservatory of Music and a year later married Samuel Roy McKelvie, a writer, lawyer, and stock breeder. McKelvie served as governor of Nebraska from 1919 to 1923. Martha McKelvie became one of Hollywood's first movie columnists, interviewing stars such as Mary Pickford, William S. Hart, and Douglas Fairbanks. She also wrote movie scripts and plays. From 1931 through 1953, the McKelvies owned and lived on a ranch in Cherry County, publishing a magazine titled By the Way. They sold the ranch in 1953 and retired to Arizona where in 1959 Martha published the first of twenty-four books that she would eventually write. She died in 1976. To the citizens of Nebraska, Martha McKelvie was the state's First Lady from 1919 to 1923. But she held a much more glamorous career as an early film columnist for Motion Picture Classic, rubbing elbows with film stars. It is this aspect of her life that she preserved in this scrapbook. Martha's interview with Mary Pickford appeared in the July 1918 issue of Motion Picture Classic and, as she did with many of her other interviews and articles with movie stars, Martha pasted a copy of the article, along with other items relating to the interview, in her scrapbook. For this article, that included a thank you letter from Mary Pickford herself, which McKelvie slipped between the pages of the volume.  Top Emogene Heston Moor Women's Army Corps Emogene Heston Moor was born in Ohiowa, Nebraska, in 1902. She graduated from Ohiowa High School and received both a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Nebraska. She joined the United States Women's Army Corps in 1943, underwent basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. She was stationed at Fort Buckley, Colorado, and in July 1945 she shipped overseas for a one year stint in Berlin. Following her discharge she operated a bookstore and taught in the University of Nebraska extension division's high school. Following her retirement she was active in local organizations and in the Democratic Party and was named a "ground breaker" by the Lincoln-Lancaster Commission on the Status of Women. She died in 1989.     In service at the end of World War II, Emogene Moor found herself stationed overseas as part of the U.S. occupation force. She took advantage of leave time to travel Europe and her scrapbook is full of photographs, souvenir ticket stubs, newspaper clippings, cards, and other memorabilia from those travels. Her scrapbook pages are also frequently labeled with short, enigmatic references to things that had happened to Emogene and her friends. Emogene Moor's dog tags worn during her service in the United States Women's Army Corps.  Top Scrapbooking today We trace the current interest in scrapbooking to the work of Marielen Christensen who, in 1980, displayed her fifty family scrapbooks at the World Conference on Records in Salt Lake City. In 1981, she published a how-to book, Keeping Memories Alive, with her husband, A.J. Today, scrapbooking is the fastest growing sector of the craft and hobby industry. In fact, a 2005 survey showed that 29 percent of U.S. households have tried scrapbooking.    Today's scrapbooks are a far cry from the reused or homemade books of the past. Frequently designed around clear themes, these books rely heavily on commercially produced embellishments to emphasize and enhance the photographs and mementos of their creators. And while these scrapbooks may lack some of the spontaneity of earlier forms, they often provide better documentation for, and better long-term preservation of the material adhered to their pages.

NSHS Home Exhibits Introduction Hide Paintings and        Ledger Books Diaries and Journals   J.A. Hill, Civil War   W. Richards, Surveyor   J.S. Morton, Statesman   Sara J. Price, Teacher        & Homesteader   W. Danley, Businessman   J. & E. Green, Farmers        & Homesteaders   S. Buck, Farm Wife Autograph Albums   S. & E. Allis, Missionaries   E. & L. Correll, Suffragists   W.J. Bryan, Orator   Lucy Drexel, Student   Viola Barnes, Student Scrapbooks   D. Canfield, Author   Willa Cather, Author   C. Calvert, Educator   Fenton. B. Fleming,        Businessman   Myrtle Soulier, Student   Verna Cort, Student   Martha McKelvie,        Movie Columnist   Emogine Moor,        Women's Army Corps   Scrapbooking Today Photograph Albums   W. B. Watson, Porter   Margaret and Edward        Gehrke, Adventurers   Nan Aspinwall,        Entertainer   Frances M. Creech,        Musician Quilts   Edith Withers Meyers,        Quilter   Sierra Nevada Bunnell,        Educator Home Movies Future Memories