Hi I'm Abby - the last of three Fortenbaugh Interns to post! I am a senior with a History major and Political Science and Anthropology minors and I hail from Kokomo, Indiana. I am so excited to be working in Special Collections - I love working with history first-hand! Here's a brief write-up of what I have completed so far in my time on the 4th Floor.

 I am currently processing an incredibly interesting individual collection, donated to Special Collections by Mr. Leo Jarboe of New Oxford, PA. So far, I have gone through all of the many miscellaneous papers, articles, images, and other items of Mr. Jarboe’s. I organized them into cohesive groups and filed them into boxes, series, and folders. Since then, I have almost fully written a finding aid to help future researchers understand the collection. Mr. Jarboe has lived a fascinating life – at 18 years old, he served as a gunner in World War II on the destroyer USS Callaghan.  While on the ship, his crew shot down a kamikaze plane. One member from the kamikaze plane survived the attack and its aftermath and the Callaghan rescued him. Fifty years later, that survivor, Kaoru Hasegawa, completed some research and was put into contact with Mr. Jarboe. Mr. Hasegawa then came to the United States and went to a Callaghan survivor’s reunion!

 In addition, my fellow intern Melanie completed an oral history project with Mr. Jarboe last year. Between his donated papers and the transcript of Melanie’s interview with him, I feel like I know Mr. Jarboe. It amazes me that someone we could pass on the street every day has such interesting stories to tell. 

The Collection at its beginning! 

Going through the many documents and organizing them into folders.