Meanwhile Down in the Dungeon

The Historical Society depends on its volunteers to keep running and it has a lot of them - so many, in fact, that it has to store some in the basement.

These women get together every Tuesday morning to work on old Johnson County Court records.

They carefully flatten documents that have been folded for more than a century, and read about the crimes, lawsuits, and divorces that scandalized the county at that time.

Here's a good one. 

State of Missouri VS John Ron and Stella Erving 

An Affray

...John Ron and Stella Erving on the 25th day of Sept. 1898 at Johnson County Missouri did then and there unlawfully make an affray by then and there unlawfully and voluntarily fighting with each other in a certain public street in the city of Warrensburg...

They put the cases in new folders and write a short synopsis on the front.  Then they're boxed and sent to the state to be microfilmed and hopefully someday posted on the internet so that people doing their geneology research can more easily find the horse thieves and public affrayers on their family tree.

The volunteers also bring food and party a lot.