Dutchess County Historical Society Yearbook Vol 028 1943

HELEN WILKINSON REYNOLDS The untimely death of Miss Reynolds brings a season of mourning to the Dutchess County Historical Society, in which she was long a moving spirit. For was she not, in the words of the President of our society,. "really the head, heart and soul" of the organization? Admired and beloved by a wide circle of friends, she was herself equally devoted to the community, which from girlhood days it was her delight to serve and which ever continued to be the centre of her life work. Alas that such rare mental endowments were cast in a frail physical frame!

Becoming a member of the society soon after its formation, she entered at once wholeheartedly into its work, being at an early date elected a trustee and serving in turn on all the most important committees. Among these many activities it will generally be agreed that by far her most valuable service was that rendered in the editorship of the Year Book, to which she was appointed in 1921, and which has been carried on uninterruptedly and efficiently, with enhancing reputation, until it may favorably be compared with any similar publication in the country. The constant stream of scholarly monographs appearing throughout the copies of this series, taken together with other notable writings, secures for the editor and author a preeminent place among local historians. in estimating Miss Reynolds' intellectual background and achievements, it will first be noticed that these were not the result of academic routine so much as the unfolding of native talent affected by human contacts combined with active experience. Her first incentives toward historical study apparently began at home, within the circle of a distinguished' family and ancestry, among friends and neighbors. Expressive of such native loyalty, there appeared in 1911 the first volume of The Records; of Christ Church (followed in 1916 by the second volume) which contains beyond the suggestion of its bare title a substantial history of this important parish, that has ever since been accepted as a model of its kind.

Again, in 1919, at the time of the anniversary of the commercial firm bearing the same inherited name, the daughter of the house with admirable fidelity prepared a pamphlet entitled Annals of a Century-old Business. In the wider field of civic history her first major production, set forth as Volume I in the Collections of the Dutchess County Histonal Society, 1924, bears the title Poughkeepsie, The Origin and Meaning of the Word. In the opinion of the present reviewers, no subsequent work shows to better effect the author's sound methods of 19