The Emily Knapp Museum has acquired many boxes that were left behind in the attic of 19 Park Ave, a home that belonged first to Fred and Josephine Shafer, and passed to their children, Leland and Vivian Shafer. As we go through the five or so boxes containing personal correspondence, poetry, and finance records, we will attempt to put together a portrait of Western Monroe Historical Society’s benefactor, Leland Shafer, and Leland Shafer’s sister, Vivian, whose Shafer Trust generously supports the Emily L Knapp Museum, the Seymour Library and also the Western Monroe Historical Society. The only documents relating to Vivian in the collection are financial records, while the remaining documents pertain to Leland Shafer.
So far, we have found, in Leland’s correspondence with a woman in California named Anne Mueller, evidence that Leland was private, lonely, thrifty and sentimental, sometimes writing his pen-pal more than twice a day. Neither Leland nor his sister, Vivian, married or had children. And since we don’t have the letters he sent to Anne, we rely on the letters he saved from her to speak to his personality.
“Something is missing.”- Anne Mueller, in her letter to Leland, 1947.
We will keep you posted as we compile the profile of this important Brockport resident. Leland passed in 1980, and Vivian in 1975.
If you have any memories, photographs, or artifacts of Leland or Vivian Shafer, please comment below or contact us at museum@brockportny.org.
Emily L. Knapp Museum 