Here we have the beginning of the Tagee Bengston political saga, as his predecessor, Phin J. Maw, has died in office and Tagee is appointed Auditor of Winnebago County, Illinois. It was October 31, 1946. Back then, Rockford had two daily papers – the Rockford Register Republic and the Morning Star (later merged into the Rockford Register Star) – plus the Rockford Labor News, which Tagee always referred to as “the scandal sheet.”
At the time of his appointment, Tagee had been a staffer in the County Auditor’s office for twenty years, and was Maw’s chief deputy for the last ten. Tagee had a reputation for fair, efficient work, and this reputation would only grow as he was elected on his own and then re-elected to serve for the next forty years.
I am taken with the photo of Tagee being congratulated by the County Board Chairman. Mr. A.P. McDougall looks like a character right out of central casting.
Production Notes
Every journey begins with that first step. I scanned about 20 pages the first day, and there is going to be more post-production work than I had expected. My grandmother pasted in a good many articles that were larger than the scrapbook page, and she just folded over the part that stuck out. Also, there are several loose items tucked in between the pages.
I knew this wouldn’t be easy, but I’m not doing this because it’s easy. I think I have a solution to the folder-over articles. It’s time consuming, but it seems to work. So far.
I’ve also developed a couple jigs for my scanner so I can drop pages in and scan without having to preview every time. I made jigs for the two most common scrapbook page sizes I’ll need to scan.