Doing My Research

A fellow writer once talked about how much she enjoyed doing the research for her books, and how difficult she found it to stop researching and start writing! I couldn’t agree more!

Now I know why: I recently completed the Clifton Strengths Assessment, and my No. 1 trait is “Learner.”

“You like to think,” says my assessment. “You like exercising the “muscles” of your brain, stretching them in multiple directions.”

Even better:

“Research feeds your soul,” the facilitator said.

That is me!

That’s why I have loved spending hours upon hours in places like the Grosvenor Room at the Central Library in downtown Buffalo, the Buffalo History Museum’s library, the AKG archives, town and county historical societies, and most exciting of all for a library nerd like me, the Rose Reading Room at the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue in New York City!

I usually arrive with a list of specific books and materials I want to review. But sometimes – most often at the Grosvenor Room – I let serendipity guide me. I wander the shelves, scanning the book titles, grabbing whichever ones speak to me. I have found so much information that way – not just about women, but about Buffalo and WNY history, too.

Here are some of the places I’ve been. I wish I were more photogenic, but there you are 🙂

Check back for updates as my research continues!

Author Cheryl Krajna stands in front of an image of President Theodore Roosevelt at the Buffalo Presidential Center.
Of course I had to snap a selfie with TR! (Buffalo Presidential Center at the Central Library in downtown Buffalo)
Author Cheryl Krajna, wearing a fancy pink hat, stands among memorabilia from Frances Folsom Cleveland at the Buffalo Presidential Center.
After the teapot event, I wandered over to the Buffalo Presidential Center, also at the Central Library. Of course I made a beeline for any information about women! There’s plenty about Belva Lockwood, Frances Folsom Cleveland and Abigail Fillmore. The room is packed with memorabilia from Buffalo’s White House connections. Do pay a visit if you haven’t been yet!
Photo of Cheryl Krajna and Dr. Catherine Collins at the Central Library in Buffalo. Both are wearing fancy hats in honor of the Victorian tea event.
I don’t often get to meet a Badass Buffalo Babe in the flesh! Fortunately, that changed on Saturday, Sept. 5 when I met Dr. Catherine Collins, a trailblazing nurse, educator, and author whose collection of teapots is now on display at the Central Library. Dr. Collins has hosted Victorian teas for many years, and I’m so glad I finally got to attend one!
Cheryl in sunglasses on the stair landing at the Richardson Hotel, with the red Medina sandstone wall and tall mullioned window of the Richardson Olmsted Campus behind her.
First time at the Richardson Hotel. Lovely place! And there’s an incredibly moving photography exhibit featuring cherished possessions of some former female inmates of the Buffalo Insane Asylum.
Cheryl squinting into bright sun outside a boarded-up red brick house with a plywood-covered window and weathered wooden porch steps.
Who knows where I was on this very hot, hazy, and smokey afternoon? Email me if you know! The answer will be revealed in an upcoming post.
Cheryl inside the Patterson Library in Westfield, beneath the domed rotunda with its gilded Corinthian capitals, book stacks and wrought-iron balcony rail.
En route to Chautauqua I stopped at the Patterson Library in Westfield. (Funded by Hannah Patterson, who wanted Westfield to have a library of “great beauty and excellence.”) What a beautiful building! It’s worth the road trip to see it.
Cheryl outside the Oliver Archives Center at Chautauqua Institution, a red brick building with an arched wooden doorway carved with the building's name.
This blog aims to tell stories of women from across Western New York – not just the City of Buffalo – so I recently visited the Oliver Archives Center at Chautauqua Institution.
Cheryl at Canalside in Buffalo, with the restored canal, the green Commercial Slip bridge, the elevated Skyway and the M&T Bank tower behind her.
At Canalside!
Cheryl inside the Buffalo History Museum's Longshed at Canalside, under a canopy of hanging illuminated cubes printed with historic portraits, maps and photographs.
Visiting The Buffalo History Museum’s Longshed at Canalside to learn more about The Canal District and the impact The Erie Canal had on Buffalo.
Two handmade beaded bracelets from the Buffalo History Museum's "Life of a Showgirl" tours: a pink one spelling HEY KITTY and a red, green, gold and black one spelling M B TALBERT and NAACP.
For the past two years, Lauren Kausner, Director of Public Programming at the Buffalo History Museum, has organized “Life of a Showgirl” tours during Women’s History Month. She pairs a Taylor Swift song with information about local women. Attendees receive a handmade bracelet to commemorate one of the women. These are the two I received so far. Hope to get another one next year!
Cheryl in sunglasses outside a white marble Greek Revival building with fluted columns and carved figural relief panels, at the foot of its wide front steps.
Headed into my second happy place! Do you know where I am?
Cheryl at the Twentieth Century Club's holiday luncheon, in a domed ballroom with plaster relief lunettes, Corinthian columns, a lit Christmas tree and tables set in red and white.
I had the great pleasure of attending the Twentieth Century Club’s holiday luncheon in Dec. 2025. What a lovely and historic place. Watch for a future article about it and its founder, Charlotte Mulligan.
Cheryl at the Roycroft Museum in East Aurora, with visitors gathered around display cases and a stone fireplace flanked by two bronze busts behind her.
At the Roycroft Museum in East Aurora, April 2025. Learned more about the Hubbard family at the start of The Roycrofters.
Cheryl in the Rose Main Reading Room at the New York Public Library, beneath the carved wood ceiling and tall arched windows, with readers at the long lamp-lit tables behind her.
Rose Reading Room, New York Public Library, Jan. 2025
Cheryl beside the bronze statue of Mary B. Talbert outside Old Erie County Hall on Franklin Street, one of the Trailblazing Women of Western New York — a figure in a high-collared coat and sash, shading her eyes with one hand.
Trailblazing Women of WNY –
Statues in front of Old Erie County Hall,
92 Franklin St.
Cheryl with her face in the cutout of a painted photo board at the Buffalo History Museum: a figure whose gown becomes Niagara Falls, under a rainbow and the word BUFFALO, after Evelyn Rumsey Cary's "The Spirit of Niagara".
Stepping into history, so to speak, at the Buffalo History Museum as part of “The Spirit of Niagara,” Evelyn Rumsey Cary’s painting for the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo
Cheryl beside the Buffalo History Museum's detailed model of the 1901 Pan-American Exposition Electric Tower, its winged Goddess of Light figure at the summit.
If you’ve never taken a behind-the-scenes tour of the Buffalo History Museum’s Resource Center, you’re missing out! Here I am before the tour on Sept. 12, 2024, standing near a model of the 1901 Pan Am Exposition Electric Tower.
Cheryl in the lobby of the Lafayette Hotel in Buffalo, designed by Louise Bethune, with its marble piers, bronze elevator doors, brass mail chute and terrazzo floor.
Inside The Lafayette Hotel, designed by America’s first professional female architect Louise Bethune. What a beautiful building!
Cheryl in sunglasses on a planted downtown terrace, with a large floral mural on a brick building and the Buffalo skyline behind her.
Outside My Happy Place!
Do you know where I am?

About BADASS BUFFALO BABES

Buffalo has no shortage of remarkable women. You’d never know it from the local history shelf.

After years of coming up empty at bookstores and libraries, I decided to write the stories myself. These posts celebrate the women who lived, worked, and made their mark in the Buffalo area — the highlights, the achievements, the moments worth remembering.

This isn’t a genealogy project or an academic archive. Just good stories about women who deserve to be known.

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