Staff photo / J.T. Whitehouse Laura Zeh-Vazquez dances in her native Kiowa regalia at a powwow. Zeh-Vazquez staffs the American Indian booth at the Canfield Fair International Building each year.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of a series of Saturday profiles of area residents and their stories. To suggest a profile, contact features editor Burton Cole at bcole@tribtoday.com or metro editor Marly Kosinski at mkosinski@tribtoday.com

CANFIELD — Laura Zeh-Vazquez, curator of the Canfield Historical Society’s Bond House, has no regrets about where her life has taken her. The combination of educator and historian is the road her life has traveled, leaving a lot of great memories along the way.

Laura was born in New Alexanderia, Pa., or “New Alex” as the locals called it. She was the daughter of Charles and Lina Hartman, who gave her the best start in life at the time. Her father demonstrated what giving was all about as he was a Lions Club member, a Mason and an Air Force pilot.

“My dad was an engineer for Westinghouse and my mom was a traditional stay-at-home mom,” Zeh-Vazquez said.

She went on to graduate from Gateway High School in 1980, then attended the University of Pittsburgh, where her father earned his degree. While at Pittsburgh, Zeh-Vazquez pursued a major in elementary education with minors in social science and history.

“I ended up as a teacher,” she said, “but I had different ideas when I started college. I wanted to get into archaeology.”

After graduating from Pittsburgh in 1985, Zeh-Vazquez immediately began teaching in the Mount Pleasant School District near Seven Springs, and later taught at a Christian school in Derry, Pa.

While working in Pennsylvania, she got hooked up with Fort Ligonier, a restored 1758 fort from the French and Indian wars. Zeh-Vazquez was hired as an educator and enjoyed her part time work because of the living history that was provided.

Working at the Fort “made me realize how much I loved hands-on history,” she said.

While at Fort Ligonier, Zeh-Vazquez would recreate tasks of the 1750s like candle dipping that had to be done to provide light at night. The programs showed children what life was like back then and how everyone had to pull together.

While working at the fort, she was also involved with some day care centers around the area.

In 1992, Zeh-Vazquez left the fort and took a job with the Ohio Historical Society, where she served as an educator for the Museum of Ceramics in East Liverpool and at the Youngstown Museum for Industry and Labor. She worked the two sites while running an I-2 (Infants and 2-year-olds) day care business.

In 1997, Zeh-Vazquez sold her day care business when she found out she was pregnant. That year she gave birth to her daughter, Ciera.

When her daughter was 4, she left the Ohio Historical Society to begin work for the Western Reserve Historical Society, which was looking for a manager for the Loghurst Museum in Canfield Township. The vintage 1805 home was part of the Underground Railroad, which helped slaves escape to the north and freedom. It included the original house and a barn.

“I came to Loghurst to serve as operations manager,” Zeh-Vazquez said. “I mowed grass, cleaned and ran educational programs. Loghurst became like a second home.”

She had free reign at Loghurst and was able to create valuable programs and even helped with home schooling.

In 2012, the WRHS closed Loghurst, but let Zeh-Vazquez stay on as a private contractor. She continued to maintain the property, but found it difficult to keep the programs going. In 2012, she was asked by the Canfield Historical Society to come work as a part-time curator of the Bond House Museum, an 1839 home that is among the early homes in Canfield.

Zeh-Vazquez continued to serve home schoolers at the Bond House and saw her own daughter graduate in 2015.

Working as curator of the Bond House has been a big joy for her. Working along with CHS President Suzie McCabe, new programs were introduced that displayed local history in new and different ways. One of the most popular programs is the Historic Walks, where live actors are used to recreate actual events from history. Events included bank robberies and even the shooting of a local sheriff.

For Zeh-Vazquez, the re-enactment of the shooting was an interesting affair. The actual event saw Canfield Sheriff John Cone shot down in July 1880 by Austintown brothers Homer and Lot Harroff. It happened in front of the WPA building at the south end of the Village Green.

“My husband, Hipolito Polo, played the sheriff and the person who shot him was played by my ex-husband, Jeff Zeh,” she said.

Besides putting on programs, Zeh-Vazquez also has been involved in some important cataloging work. She is presently doing chronicling of past local newspapers such as the Mahoning Dispatch. The newspapers are scanned page by page and sent to the Chronicling America website, where the public can get access to them.

“It will help researches and those working on family genealogy,” she said.

She also helps log in new donations of historic artifacts. When that happens, she always seems to come across an interesting piece.

In a recent Boy Scout display she set up, one of the patches was a 1935 Boy Scout National Jamboree patch.

“I learned that the patches were given out before the date of the Jamboree,” she said, “but the Jamboree never took place due to a polio outbreak that year.”

“It seems that I am always discovering new things like that patch while working in a place like the Bond House,” she said. “It is like being an archaeologist, like I wanted to do in the beginning.”

Besides her involvement at the Bond House, Zeh-Vazquez spends time in the International Building at the Canfield Fair, where she staffs the American Indian booth. She claims to be a mix of Scottish, Austrian and Kiowa (Native American).

Zeh-Vazquez and her husband have a home on Youngstown’s South Side and another home at Guilford Lake in Columbiana County, allowing the closeness of city living with an escape to the country to relax.

And the Bond House, well, that could be considered a third home where history is made and stored.