Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2006 18:54:01 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Sad news: Dick Eney
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

> kfl at KeithLynch.net 12/25/2006 12:09:17 PM >>>
>In a few months his birthdate will show up at
>http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/.  I suggest we lay the issue to
>rest until then.

Sounds lie a reasonable idea.  Until then, he can remain: Dick Eney -
International Man of Mystery.

>That site bases their data on Social Security records, and that
>government agency tends to be pretty careful about people's ages,
>for obvious reasons.
>
>It's an amazing site.  But it does tend to run a few months behind.
>Since it's intended for genealogists, I guess there's no reason for
>it to be updated more often.
>
>It was from that site that I concluded, early last year, that one
>of WSFA's seven founders, Phyllisann Courtis, was still alive.
>Unfortunately she died within a few days of my discovering this.
>
>I no longer have access to WSFA's archives, so I can't look up when
>Dick started attending WSFA.  The meeting minutes are nearly
>complete,
>except for gap in the mid-1970s (and possibly another gap this year)
>so the current secretary, Drew Bittner, should be able to look it up
>if he's willing to devote a few hours to poring through the archives.
>Unfortunately, I was unable to completely placing all the old
material
>on the website.  I placed the past 31 years online, but not the 27
>years before that.

It might be a project for WSFAns with the right skills - and time - to
work on.  Especially since next year will be WSFA's 60th birthday.  It
would be interesting to know when the first "official" meeting was,
since the founders met at the 1947 Philly Worldcon
(see:http://wsfa.org/wsfahist.htm , whicch makes us one of oldest
continous SF clubs) so probably Sept 1947?

& photos of WSFA's 50th Birthday cake:
http://www.wsfa.org/pichist/jm713x.htm

>
>Searching is *enormously* easier when something is online.  For
>instance last September Mike Walsh discovered that WSFA's then-
>president had a letter printed in Time magazine in 1949.  Imagine
>how
>much effort it would have been for him to physically leaf through
>the past 3000 back issues of Time and a hundred other magazines
>and
>newspapers, while eyeballing for any mention of WSFA.

Not bloodly likely <g> I can have more fun wasting my time at YouTube.

>When material is online, it's also accessible to more people, and
less
>likely to be forever lost.  Okay, physical copies of Time magazine
>from 1949 will probably be around forever, albeit not in most
>people's
>homes, but some old WSFA Journals may have only one or two
>surviving
>copies, and the handwritten meeting minutes only exist in one place,
>and are certain to be lost or destroyed eventually.  I'm impressed
>that they've lasted this long.
>
>I checked my "50 years ago" column in the WSFA Journals I
>produced,
>and Dick Eney apparently didn't attend in 1954 or 1955.  He shows up
>often in the "40 years ago" column, plus I know he mentioned WSFA
>in
>his Fancyclopedia II in 1959.  Of course he may have attended prior
>to
>1954, I don't know.

Dick was Fan GoH at L.A.con II (1984), they *should* be some bio info
in the the con publications.

mjw