It’s tempting when we reflect on those people whose accomplishments we consider
historic to imagine ourselves at their side, on “the right side of history.” Alas, history
takes no side.

Nor does history judge its actors. People do that, and they usually on contemporary
values rather than context so crucial to understanding history. As a result, historical
accounts are exaggerated in the retelling, but we lose sight of the complexity of their
origins.

Generally, people don’t plan to make history — they’re just doing the best they can in a
complicated and sometimes hostile world.

C.W. Post, for example, was a struggling inventor and land speculator before he arrived
at Battle Creek in 1891 as a patient at the Sanitarium. His physician, Dr. John Harvey
Kellogg, didn’t expect him to live, but in January of 1895 Post launched the company
that created the cereal industry and turned Battle Creek into a manufacturing
powerhouse.

As far as we know, Erastus Hussey had no affiliation with the abolitionist movement
when in 1838 he settled in Battle Creek, where he was stationmaster for the
Underground Railroad. He and his wife, Sarah, aided and sheltered more than 1,000
people escaping slavery, some of them who made their own contributions to Battle
Creek’s history.

Both are featured in this month’s Things Worth Remembering exhibit at Willard Library.
The exhibit also marks the January 1943 anniversary of the Percy Jones General
Hospital — today’s Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center — receiving its first patients during
World War II.

Stop in and take a look — and return often! We regularly update the exhibit with new
artifacts and photographs, and we’re always open to your contributions.