“It’s going to be a fun evening,” said Don McLaughlin, who heads society’s publicity.
Pizza and drinks will be served, and a quilt that will be raffled at the Society’s April Quilt Show will be on display.
And to give you an idea of how much fun history can be, McLaughlin and his wife, Saron, will have memorabilia from Larry Benner on display, too.
Larry Benner, who was Saron’s uncle, is part of a family that dates back to Miamisburg’s roots. Original members rode a covered wagon en route to the Miami Valley. Larry, though, is a more recent member, born in 1900.
“He worked on a farm like all German kids did,” McLaughlin said. “On his 21st birthday, my wife’s dad saw him going down the lane. He left, and he had a violin in his hand.
“They didn’t see him for years and years. They didn’t know what happened to him.”
Larry Benner, it turns out was teaching violin in Chicago. Then he joined the circus.
Eventually Larry’s mother, suspecting an entertainment career, placed an ad in “Billboard” magazine. Larry saw it and returned to Miamisburg.
But the circus called him back. He was known to bring a circus troupe home with him on his visits.
“In fact, they had trapeze acts set up in the backyard one time,” McLaughlin said.
Larry Benner’s name is remembered daily in Miamisburg every time passerby’s look at the road signs on Lawrence Avenue. Benner Road, too, gets its name from the famous family. Larry died in the early 1970s.
At the Miamisburg Sesquicentennial in 1968, Benner himself told stories and demonstrated “paper tearing” in Library Park.
McLaughlin will bring an example to the meeting. Benner could take a newspaper and begin tearing as he told a story. The individual sheets, when unfolded, would display an intricate pattern.
“The one design we have has elephants all round the outside edge,” McLaughlin said.
“One trunk is holding onto the tail of the other one.”
Every family has an interesting historical story somewhere in their past.
“If you just want to join and see what the Historical Society is all about, that’s fine, too,” McLaughlin said. “We’re not here to recruit people and make them work.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 696-2080 or williamgschmidt@verizon.net.
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