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The image for the Library's holiday card this year came out of
the Archives. The Archives are housed on the fifth floor of Lauinger
Library as part of the Library's Special Collections and contain
an almost unfathomable variety of Georgetown-related historical
photos, papers, bits, and pieces. This Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
dining car menu, created exclusively for Georgetown students in
1927, is one of those bits.
One of the Library's alumni friends, Andrew Boemi C'68, dropped
us an email to tell us that the card brought back memories of
his own trip home to Chicago from GU one holiday season. He took
the B&O's Capitol Limited, he tells us, because all flights
to Chicago were cancelled due to snow. "The train,"
he says, "was standing room only to Chicago . . . dining
cars and lounge cars. The B&O put extras on because of the
heavy load . . . [they] were filled all night with merriment-nobody
slept. The next morning we-the passengers-walked from the Dearborn
St. Station down the middle of Wacker Drive-Chicago was literally
buried-nothing was moving and we were the only people around-we
then caught other trains to our homes in the Chicago suburbs."
Next time you are inclined to throw away a box of memorabilia-on
whatever subject-that's been sitting in your attic or crawlspace,
stop for a moment and consider whether there is an archive that
might want to have it. Many archivists would welcome a phone call
or an email of inquiry. Those papers and objects you may not value
now may in 75 or 100 years be a glimpse into history. And if you
have a box of Georgetown-related memorabilia, contact us!
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