By Tom Ganser
Correspondent
Carol Lohry Cartwright was the featured speaker at the April 22 meeting of the Whitewater Rotary Club, held at the Whitewater Country Club.
Cartwright has published several studies on Wisconsin cities, including “Architectural and Historical Survey of Milton, Wisconsin” in 2013.
She shared the history of the Whitewater Historical Society and the Whitewater Depot Museum, beginning with the early efforts of a committee of the Whitewater Federation of Women’s Club.
Cartwright then discussed the incorporation of the Whitewater Historical Society in 1947 as a community wide-organization to help preserve local history and the extensive interior restoration of the Depot building in 2012 funded by a Transportation Enhance Grant, the City of Whitewater and a Whitewater Historical Society-led community fundraising campaign.
During her talk Cartwright shared with the Rotarians several historical artifacts brought from the museum collection, including a mid-19th century candle mold, a sadiron (heated on a stove and used to iron clothes) and an eggbeater from the Victorian era.
Other items Cartwright brought to the meeting included a book of meeting minutes from the Women’s Christian Temperance Union during the years before prohibition and a cloth bag used by the first treasurer of the City of Whitewater (founded in 1865) to carry money.
