Lowell Area Historical Museum Honors Volunteer of the Year

We received the following guest article from the Lowell Area Historical Museum.

The Lowell Area Historical Museum celebrated its volunteers last week at the annual Volunteer Appreciation event. In 2018, a Volunteer of the Year Award was introduced to recognize annually a volunteer who has given over the years in outstanding ways. Past recipients of the Robert Graham Award for Volunteer of the Year were Bev Anderson (2018), Carolyn Jane Blough (2019), Dale Kropf (2020), Cathy Haefner (2021) and Jim Doyle (2022).

This year the Robert Graham Award for Volunteer of the Year was given to Don DeJong.

Don DeJong served as the Sexton at Oakwood Cemetery for many years, expressing his love for the community in the care he gave there. He also worked for the City of Lowell for many, many years. What many may not know, is the efforts that Don has put into the Lowell Area Historical Museum. Don is an avid researcher. He even has a microfilm machine at his house that he uses to track down newspaper articles about people from Lowell’s past. He takes this research and has turned it into a series of 7 books centered on Oakwood cemetery. The books are thematic-Civil War Veterans, Early Settlers, Early Businessmen and If These Oaks Could Only Speak Volumes 1-4. The books provide a wealth of information about past inhabitants of Lowell and their lives “Lived between the Dash.” Don has generously contributed the profits from the sales of these books to the Museum over the years contributing to the financial health of the museum. He physically assembles the cemetery books himself, and even donates the materials needed.

Don has provided the museum with copies of obituaries, enough to fill 70 large notebooks. He has also copied and given the Museum articles for our business, local citizen, church, school, house and subject research files. These copies aid our ability to help researchers do genealogy, learn about their home or business location and so much more. His research and cemetery books form the basis of our cemetery tour guide books which he helps to lead.

Don retired from the City recently. The Museum has been the lucky recipient of his extra time. The ABCs of Lowell History series was printed into booklet forms in 2022. Don took it upon himself to make sure that businesses in town bought copies for their waiting rooms, that individuals knew about the book and bought them as well. He has helped to spread the word about the ABC booklet in a significant way. As of the end of May, Don has personally sold 329 copies of ABCs.

This year the Museum presented the Robert Graham Volunteer of the Year Award to Don for all that he has done to promote the Lowell Area Historical Museum and Lowell area history.

Don, Thank you!