Columns

Happy New Year! Wishing you well and for a better 2021. 

Whether we are just entering our earliest decades of life or cresting into our final decades, no matter our ages, all of us will forever share these times of living through the COVID-19 pandemic. And, next we will share a new decade beginning with 2021 that we submit will be the most life-changing and world-shattering years since the last pandemic of 1920. The extraordinary binary choices we will be facing have very little to do with a virus, although we can expect more pandemics to come. We pray we will be more prepared and disciplined next time.

The following snippets of history are drawn from the pages of the Healdsburg Tribune, the Healdsburg Enterprise and the Sotoyome Scimitar, and are prepared by the volunteers at the Healdsburg Museum & Historical Society. Admission is always free at the museum, open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

This Week in H’burg is a weekly column featuring photos and fun facts from local photographer Pierre Ratté. Each week we’ll feature a new photo from Ratté along with a fact about the subject matter of the photo.

Note: This week in H’burg is a new weekly column featuring photos and fun facts from local photographer Pierre Ratté. Each week we’ll feature a new photo from Ratté along with a fact about the subject matter of the photo.

The following snippets of history are drawn from the pages of the Healdsburg Tribune, the Healdsburg Enterprise and the Sotoyome Scimitar, and are prepared by the volunteers at the Healdsburg Museum & Historical Society. Admission is always free at the museum, open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Every year comes and goes, but also leaves behind important dates that get remembered, written in newspapers and history books, and are sometimes turned into annual commemorations. (Oct. 8 is such a date for Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park Tubbs Fire survivors.) As 2020 is now running out of dates and makes way for 2021, we can begin to chronicle which dates over the last 12 months we may remember over the years to come.

Note: This week in H’burg is a new weekly column featuring photos and fun facts from local photographer Pierre Ratté. Each week we’ll feature a new photo from Ratté along with a fact about the subject matter of the photo.

It's natural to seek an escape from the disappointments of the global pandemic, and one need look no further than the library for a few ideas on how to find that escape. Of course, a visit to the library isn't the same as before, so a nostalgic experience isn't within our grasp; luckily, the pandemic can't stop library staff from dreaming up new ways of putting a good read in your hands or creating a little more joy in our lives.

This year of 2020 that is now coming to an end started when three people in Wuhan, China were found to have contracted a “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus” which became known as COVID-19 and has now infected 73 million people worldwide and has killed 300,000 U.S. citizens and 1.62 million global inhabitants with the threat of killing millions more into the new year. The rapid spread of the virus closed whole countries, stopped international air traffic, halted global commerce and changed our domestic political debate.