My wife and I spent three hours in the Library in St. Louis today doing our "get to know the place" visit. The staff were great to work with and the interior of the library is one of the most beautiful rooms I have ever been in, of course that's not saying much for a guy fresh out of the Ozarks. Anyway, I got about 200 pages photocopied and made arrangements for them to mail me about that many more. I have had their finding aid for some time but I was still overwelmed by the size of the collection. Although the finding aid is well written and is an invaluable guide for any search, I did a few spot checks of files that from the guide did not appear to hold anything of much interest to me personally. In one of those random files I found a letter from my great-grandmothers brother-in-law telling Peterson how many of her aunts were still alive in 1906. In another random sample I found a veteran from the Pilot Knob battle replying to a Peterson request for information from my home town. If what I had photocopied yields as much information as those two random files I won't live long enough to finish going through the whole collection. I made the mistake of starting to read everything after those two pearls surfaced and they don't stay open enough hours for me to do that. If any of you guys ever get the chance to make the trip, it's worth the effort. Thanks Kirby for your kind advice and encouragement. Jim Morris