Friends of the Library Annual Meeting
Sunday October 21st 1pm - 3pm
at the Outlook Inn in Eastsound
Join us to hear local luminary Bob Dash discuss On An Acre Shy of Eternity - and Beyond. Orcas teacher, photographer and environmental artist, Bob Dash will discuss his remarkable observations and photographic process.
Sunday is the kickoff of National Friends of the Library Week, 10/21 - 10/27
Meeting is open to FOIL members only. Not a member? Join today, or at the meeting!
OCTOBER ARTIST: Eric Portis
Eric Portis lives near Obstruction Pass with his wonderful wife, Brittney, and their super dog, Wizard. He’s been taking and tinkering with near infrared photography for the last four years and is excited to get a few of the results into proper frames and up onto public walls where people can see them.
Redefining Prosperity
Tuesday October 23 @ 6pm
Orcas Island Library - Free
CAN BEAUTY SAVE THE WORLD? Filmmaker John de Graaf will present his latest documentary REDEFINING PROSPERITY, the story of Nevada City’s fight to keep dams off the Yuba River.
Born in the California Gold Rush, Nevada City was once the scene of some of the most destructive environmental practices on earth. In the 1960’s the town was discovered by the “back to the land movement,” and became torn by clashing values defining wealth.
The 16-year fight through the ‘80s and ‘90s to keep dams off the beautiful Yuba River and to protect the watershed turned conflict between conservatives and liberals into understanding based on nature, community and a sense of place. The nature movement changed ideas about food, education and respect for nature.
Join director John de Graaf for Redefining Prosperity: The Gold Rushes of Nevada City, and talk about the And Beauty for All campaign (www.andbeautyforall.org). Additional information is available at (www.redefiningprosperityfilm.com). Refreshments are courtesy of the Friends of the Library.
The Man Who Walked
Backward
Ben Montgomery Author
Friday, October 26 @ 6:00 pm
Ben Montgomery is author of the New York Times-bestselling Grandma Gatewood's Walk, winner of a 2014 Outdoor Book Award, The Leper Spy, and The Man Who Walked Backward. He spent most of his 20 year newspaper career as an enterprise reporter for the Tampa Bay Times. He founded the narrative journalism website Gangrey.com and helped launch the Auburn Chautauqua, a Southern writers collective. In 2010, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting and won the Dart Award and Casey Medal for a series called "For Their Own Good," about abuse at Florida's oldest reform school.
Like most Americans at the time, Plennie Wingo was hit hard by the effects of the Great Depression. When the bank foreclosed on his small restaurant in Abilene, Texas, he found himself suddenly penniless with nowhere left to turn. After months of struggling to feed his family on pitiful wages he earned at a greasy spoon, Plennie decided it was time to do something extraordinary -- something to resurrect the spirit of adventure and optimism he felt he'd lost. He decided to walk around the world -- backwards.
In The Man Who Walked Backward, Pulitzer Prize finalist Ben Montgomery charts Plennie's Backwards trek across the America that gave rise to Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck, and the New Deal. With the Dust Bowl and Great Depression as a backdrop, Montgomery follows Plennie across the Atlantic through Germany, Turkey, and beyond, and details the daring physical feats, grueling hardships, comical misadventures, and hostile foreign police he encountered along the way. A remarkable and quirky slice of Americana, The Man Who Walked Backward paints a rich and vibrant portrait of a jaw-dropping period of history.
Interested in researching your family tree?
Come branch out with us!
The Orcas Island Genealogy Club is free and open to anyone who is interested in exploring family genealogy--whether you have years of experience or are just wanting to begin now. The monthly meetings happen on the third Tuesday of the month in the library Community Meeting Room from 10:30-12:30. The next meeting is on Oct 16, 2018. Bring a computer or other device that can connect to the internet.
The topic for October is “How to Search for Female Ancestors”. This is a challenging aspect of genealogical research but it is often the first place people want to explore. Collectively, we can share our tips and successes (or false trails) with each other. This topic is a change from the scheduled “Find-A-Grave” and field trip presentation that had originally been planned. That will be rescheduled.
After the meeting there is help available for learning how to connect to the free library version of Ancestry.com.
Coordinators, Vicki Leimback, Rebecca Johnson and Kathi Ciskowski are passionate about research and will bring their organizational and genealogical skills and resources to share.
Rebecca Johnson is a professional genealogist with many areas of expertise. Vicki Leimback has been doing extensive research on her family history and many other topics including the history of houses. Kathi Ciskowski has a Certificate from the University of Washington Genealogy and Family History course and has taught and helped people with genealogy projects for 8 years. All three live on Orcas. Call either Vicki (206-714-3348), Rebecca (360-298-6007) or Kathi (360-376-4186) for more information.
|