Be-Br

File — Box: 3, Folder: 2

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

From the Collection: The Myrtle Porterville Collection is arranged into three major series: Mrs. Porterville's personal papers, the material collected on Griggs County history, and a small collection on Steele County history. The Private Papers Series of Mrs. Porterville are not very extensive. The correspondence, arranged chronologically, is very incomplete. It consists mainly of letters from friends, her son Claude and her father. The subject files contain various materials including her brother Byron Bemis' farming record book, Mrs. Porterville's daily class record while teaching in Cooperstown, a very incomplete notebook, several poems believed to be by Mrs. Porterville. The files also include several miscellaneous documents of Mr. Porterville, and various school papers of their son, Claude. The school correspondence and reports, dated 1927 to 1929, are from F. Ray Rogers to all teachers and occasionally to Mrs. Porterville concerning school procedures, policies, etc. The tax statements are for their Cooperstown home, and finally there is Mrs. Porterville's contract for teaching in 1903 in the Cooperstown School District. The Griggs County History Series material is a very extensive collection of primary and secondary source materials. Much of it is transcribed copies rather than original documents. Also, Mrs. Porterville and others have written historical manuscripts on various topics. The collection has been organized basically by subject. The first section is devoted to biographical and genealogical materials. The Biography, autobiography and reminiscence sub-series contains copies of written and published histories from all sources available. It contains a wealth of information on the settling of Griggs County and pioneer life. The Summaries sub-series is an alphabetical listing by family of all vital statistics such as birth, marriage, and death, as well as settlement year and minor historical notes. Mrs. Porterville drew upon many sources and attempted to include everyone known to have lived in Griggs County. Mrs. Porterville also copied birth, marriage and death records from various sources and did extensive clipping of newspapers containing biographical material on former and then current residents of Griggs County. The Cooperstown area family histories sub-series consists of compositions written by students of Mrs. Porterville in the late 1920s about early area pioneers. The next section of the Griggs County history is arranged alphabetically by subject. It is composed mainly of typed and handwritten notes and manuscripts covering almost all aspects of Griggs County history. Since the file titles are quite self-explanatory the researcher should consult the shelf list for specific topics. It should be noted that the files on individual churches are not extensive and include only minimal historical material. The Federal Writers Project papers are mainly those of the Griggs County worker, Mrs. Claire Jackson, although it is evident Mrs. Porterville was very active in helping her assemble the historical data. The correspondence seems quite complete. There are also photocopies of a series of articles written by Mrs. Porterville that were published in the local newspaper, the Griggs County Sentinal-Courier in 1957-1958. Mrs. Porterville took extensive notes from the Griggs County Courier newspaper (title varies) from its beginning to about 1913 which are arranged chronologically. She also arranged and typed some notes by subject but none of the files are very extensive. In the Organizations sub-series none of the files are very extensive except for the Masonic Lodge, Eastern Star and Kiwanis. The Schools sub-series has been divided into several sections: the Cooperstown School District (formerly called Greendale), the Cooperstown High School, and the remaining township school districts. Material on the various towns and villages in Griggs County has been placed in the Towns sub-series. Again, most files are not extensive except for Cooperstown. In 1918 the North Dakota Legislature authorized the establishment of the North Dakota War History Commission, whose purpose it was to collect and preserve the military record of all men who participated in World War I. Mrs. Porterville was appointed Griggs County chairman and responsible for assembling biographical and other material on World War I veterans. The records of her work are very complete and the major part is composed of completed military service forms for each person and copies of letters written by the soldiers to their families. There are also other various items from World War I. The Steele County Series is by no means extensive. It follows basically the format of the Griggs County material including biographical material, newspaper clippings, and then subject files arranged alphabetically. Most of the subject files are not very complete.