Tribute to the Grapevine Historical Society First President
Alberta Nettleton was energetic, creative, an organizer, outgoing, forward thinking and
very good at matching people with projects they could excel at while contributing
to the preservation of Grapevine's unique history.
Tribute to Alberta Nettleton
by Janis Roberson
April 2010
very good at matching people with projects they could excel at while contributing
to the preservation of Grapevine's unique history.
Tribute to Alberta Nettleton
by Janis Roberson
April 2010
While Alberta was President of the Grapevine Garden Club she became aware that
the Cotton Belt Depot was to be demolished. She mobilized the Grapevine Garden
Club and City leaders to move the Depot to Heritage Park at the corner of Ball
and Wall Streets. During this process she realized that the long term
management of the Depot should be done by a historical group so she invited
representatives from all the local ladies clubs in town to her home to discuss
the establishment of a Historical Society as a non-profit corporation and
Alberta became the first President in 1974. After the Depot was moved into
place she began soliciting donations of items of local historical significance
to display in the Depot as a museum. The Museum was kept open weekends by
Society volunteers until there were funds to employ the first docent/curator
for the museum.
Her next challenge was fundraising to support the museum and the idea of a fall festival was born in which the Historical Society operated a Country Store which sold homemade Ice Cream, cakes and other items to raise funds. This festival began in Heritage Park with other organizations also joining in to raise funds for their organizations and later moved to Dove Park as the festival grew. This festival later became Main Street Days we still celebrate today.
With the area available around the Depot the first City Jail, the old concrete “Calaboose” was moved from Bartley Street to a location by the Depot in Heritage Park.
In 1976 Alberta heard that the Torian Log Cabin was going to be torn down and again she mobilized members of the Historical Society to save the cabin on very short notice. Again the City came through with a site and the Torian Cabin was reconstructed in Liberty Park on Main Street. This project took real team work led by Dee Barker.
Alberta contacted the Grapevine Sun and convinced them to preserve back issues of the newspaper by having them microfilmed. Then the Historical Society purchased the entire set of microfilm and a microfilm reader which they donated to the Grapevine Public Library so the public could have access to the back issues from 1898 to 1976.
As program chair Alberta had a series of genealogy specialists make presentations at the monthly meetings after which the Historical Society made a donation to the Grapevine Public Library to purchase books and magazines on Genealogy to encourage more research by the community.
She also scheduled an Oral History workshop which in 1981 led to the Oral History project of recording the memories of teachers about several schools no longer in existence and was later expanded to other topics as well. The Oral History collection of 45 tapes is housed in the Grapevine Public Library.
Alberta was very excited when Brent McPherson suggested doing a census of four local cemeteries and organized the volunteers to assist in documenting the tombstones and providing an index which is housed in the Genealogy room of the Grapevine Public Library.
While encouraging donations of furniture items to display in the Torian Cabin, Alberta really wanted a quilt for the bed and eventually a local family donated a quilt top and Alberta organized a group of quilters who met in the home of Catherine Terrill each Monday afternoon till the quilt was finished and displayed on the bed in the Torian Cabin. About this same time the two doors were enlarged to the cabin and glass windows installed so visitors could see the display inside the cabin.
One of the last projects Alberta worked on for the Historical Society was the placement of the displays for the reopening of the restored Depot in 1994. Alberta served as President several times, 1st & 2nd Vice President, Treasurer and At-Large on the Historical Society Board for most of the years till she moved to Dallas in 1995. When funding was needed to get the Grapevine Area History book published she & Gordon stepped up along with many others to make sure it happened.
Her tireless enthusiasm for history, incredible organization skills, encouraging cooperation with the City of Grapevine, fundraising ability and working to get a grant from the CVB to ensure the Museum was open weekends to visitors & residents has helped make our Museum one of Grapevine’s treasures today and our Society one we are all proud to be a member of currently. And amazingly this was only one of the organizations in town she supported and was dedicated to helping them all excel just as the Grapevine Historical Society has.
Her next challenge was fundraising to support the museum and the idea of a fall festival was born in which the Historical Society operated a Country Store which sold homemade Ice Cream, cakes and other items to raise funds. This festival began in Heritage Park with other organizations also joining in to raise funds for their organizations and later moved to Dove Park as the festival grew. This festival later became Main Street Days we still celebrate today.
With the area available around the Depot the first City Jail, the old concrete “Calaboose” was moved from Bartley Street to a location by the Depot in Heritage Park.
In 1976 Alberta heard that the Torian Log Cabin was going to be torn down and again she mobilized members of the Historical Society to save the cabin on very short notice. Again the City came through with a site and the Torian Cabin was reconstructed in Liberty Park on Main Street. This project took real team work led by Dee Barker.
Alberta contacted the Grapevine Sun and convinced them to preserve back issues of the newspaper by having them microfilmed. Then the Historical Society purchased the entire set of microfilm and a microfilm reader which they donated to the Grapevine Public Library so the public could have access to the back issues from 1898 to 1976.
As program chair Alberta had a series of genealogy specialists make presentations at the monthly meetings after which the Historical Society made a donation to the Grapevine Public Library to purchase books and magazines on Genealogy to encourage more research by the community.
She also scheduled an Oral History workshop which in 1981 led to the Oral History project of recording the memories of teachers about several schools no longer in existence and was later expanded to other topics as well. The Oral History collection of 45 tapes is housed in the Grapevine Public Library.
Alberta was very excited when Brent McPherson suggested doing a census of four local cemeteries and organized the volunteers to assist in documenting the tombstones and providing an index which is housed in the Genealogy room of the Grapevine Public Library.
While encouraging donations of furniture items to display in the Torian Cabin, Alberta really wanted a quilt for the bed and eventually a local family donated a quilt top and Alberta organized a group of quilters who met in the home of Catherine Terrill each Monday afternoon till the quilt was finished and displayed on the bed in the Torian Cabin. About this same time the two doors were enlarged to the cabin and glass windows installed so visitors could see the display inside the cabin.
One of the last projects Alberta worked on for the Historical Society was the placement of the displays for the reopening of the restored Depot in 1994. Alberta served as President several times, 1st & 2nd Vice President, Treasurer and At-Large on the Historical Society Board for most of the years till she moved to Dallas in 1995. When funding was needed to get the Grapevine Area History book published she & Gordon stepped up along with many others to make sure it happened.
Her tireless enthusiasm for history, incredible organization skills, encouraging cooperation with the City of Grapevine, fundraising ability and working to get a grant from the CVB to ensure the Museum was open weekends to visitors & residents has helped make our Museum one of Grapevine’s treasures today and our Society one we are all proud to be a member of currently. And amazingly this was only one of the organizations in town she supported and was dedicated to helping them all excel just as the Grapevine Historical Society has.