Seward Magazine Club

Elaine and I are hosting the meeting of the Seward Magazine Club this evening at the Civic Center West Fireplace Room. The room is set up with a St. Patrick’s Day theme and ready for members to arrive for the 7:30 meeting. Charles Lieske, Executive Director of the Seward Chamber of Commerce and also a member of the Seward City  Council has been invited to update the group on activities of the Chamber and Council. The Magazine Club dates back to 1889.  “It began when businessmen got together regularly for coffee. They would share and discuss articles from various magazines to which they subscribed."  Eventually the men decided to form a Club for regular evening meetings including their wives. We have been members for over 20 years and the by-laws provide for limited membership. Custom dictates that men and women are separated during their magazine reports and are seated at separate tables for lunch. My report this evening will be from Wm. H. Smith’s Early Days book published in 1937. It will be on an article telling of the Cupola on a barn northwest of Garland having come from Nebraska’s first State Capitol. I have distinct memories of my parents pointing it out to me as we drove by in our Model A Ford. I enjoyed those historic memories for years until this past Monday when Jim McKee, the Historic writer for the Lincoln Journal Star, pointed out that the whole story was a sham. As he pointed out, there is a distinct difference between the two that were thought to be the same. I am probably the only member of our Club that has seen the Cupola on the barn, but it seems like an appropriate tale to tell with the St. Patrick theme. My Great Grandparents that immigrated from Ireland would be proud. Only an Irishman would have been able to make up such a story and get that many people to believe it for that many years.