Chatsworth : History Buff Moving On to New Activities

She’s not retiring, Virginia Watson says.

After 32 years with the Chatsworth Historical Society, an organization she helped found, Watson is stepping down as curator but insists that she’ll still be involved in their activities.

“I’m getting older,” the 74-year-old Chatsworth resident said Wednesday. “It’s harder for me to do a lot of the physical things.”

On Tuesday, the historical society held a reception in Watson’s honor and expressed its appreciation for her more than three decades of service to the community.

But while Watson’s tenure as curator may be over, her plate remains full. She’s continuing to work on two books she hopes to finish in the next two years, a biography of Chatsworth pioneer Minnie Hill Palmer and a community history.

“I’ll always be busy,” Watson said. “I’m a chronic volunteer.”

Watson grew up in Highland Park, she said, but visited Chatsworth from time to time as a child and young adult. In 1952, she moved here with her late husband to raise race horses.

“It was a small area and we had one drugstore,” she recalled. “They sold everything in there, including medicine for cattle. . . . It was country. You could see horses all the time.”

According to Watson, the historical society’s creation in 1963 grew out of a piece of history that wasn’t saved--an old train station demolished in the middle of the night before the community could preserve it.

Soon after, the society performed its first rescue--of a Methodist church built in 1903. After a cross-town transplant, the building now rests at Oakwood Memorial Park.

Watson can wax nostalgic for hours about the Chatsworth of the past, but she says she isn’t unhappy with the ways the community has changed over the decades.

“You can’t stop progress,” she said. “You do need to move on.”

And that’s just what she’s going to do.