Friday check in: two programs and recent reading

These are two of the quilts from her trunk show

The speaker at Wednesday's guild meeting was very inspiring.   Here's how the guild newsletter described her:  Lina Owen is a passionate international business professional, quilting educator, and creative entrepreneur. She is the co-founder of Quilting with Latinas and owner of BlueBelle Designs Studio, where she teaches children and adults how to sew. Lina is also one of the authors of Learn to Quilt: A Bilingual Guide, the first bilingual quilting book of its kind. Her work celebrates resilience, creativity, and the power of storytelling through fabric and design.  She is orignally from Mexico and has lived in Milton, Wisconsin, for many years. 

I didn't get a photo of my friend Ruth Ann and the quilt she brought to show and tell.  It was a red and white double nine-patch that she and a group had made for a community fundraiser in the early 2000's.  Shortly after that raffle/auction she had a family tragedy and she sort of forgot about the quilt.  Earlier this year that very quilt came up on a FB Marketplace post from Arizona!  A friend identified it from the lable and emailed her.  When Ruth Ann contacted the seller and told her the story the seller sent it to her at no charge.    Labels are important! **

**Though I don't label every quilt I make. There are some that I don't necessarily want traced back to me. I don't want to be badgered or stalked.

Last evening (Thursday) I enjoyed a program at the Waukegan History Center.  

Robert Douglas arrived in Waukegan in 1847, from England by way of Nova Scotia.  In 1848 he went to the California Gold Rush and returned to Waukegan with $5000 that he used to establish a tree nursery (later expanded to nurseries in Missouri and Kansas). 

The business went for three generations. His granddaughter Georgia Douglas Clarke (1871-1952) was a founder of the Waukegan Garden Club and was renowned for her peony and iris gardens.  She also championed the preservation of the dunesland that became Illinois Beach State Park.  (That's familiar to you because of all my walks there.) 

I so enjoy local history!   

Just as the program ended the tornado sirens began blaring.   A friend (who was at the program) let me stop at her house on the north side of Waukegan until the all-clear came through and I could drive safely home.

# # # # #   I read a lot in March!   Catching up on reviews: 

  Jess Walter's latest novel is set in Spokane, familiar territory (that's where he lives).    Retired newspaper reporter Rhys Kinnick has been estranged from his daughter Bethany for years.  He's living almost off the grid on the farm he inherited from his grandparents.  Rhys's ex-wife/Bethany's mother  recently died from cancer.  Bethany is married to Shane.  They and their two children (13 and 6)  live in a Christian compound, Shane with more enthusiasm than Bethany.  Bethany decides to go to a rock festival to see her old boyfriend (her daughter's father) and delivers the two children to Rhys's doorstep.  Granddad and grandchildren view one another uneasily at first but the bond gets stronger.  While Bethany is still at the festival Shane comes to reclaim his children.  Rhys enlists longtime friends to help get them back.

There's suspense and some violence but the reader is confident that things will work out for the best. And they do.  

I listened to the audio edition.  Edoardo Ballerini is a great narrator.  

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A classic that I had never read.   It was published in 1954.  

A strict, rule-abiding teacher is beloved by her community.  When she is hospitalized her former students rally to support her.   It's a dated, very white-bread setting in a bygone small-town America, but a charming story.

(Wow, used copies are $50 and higher on various online sites!   The movie version was made in 1955.)  

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This was the AAUW Reflections on Reading selection for April 1.   The subject was very interesting -- how Big Tobacco deceived the public (and in the story, women) about the devastating effects of tobacco on health, not only from smoking but also for the workers in the fields.  The story also touched on postwar labor relations, especially for working women.  

What bothered me were some of the details.  A minor one:  reference to a new "fire engine red" Singer sewing machine. Singer didn't make machines in that color.   More importantly:  the social stratification that surely prevailed in Bright Leaf (a disguised Winston-Salem).  Would protagonist/narrator Maddie, age 16, and her dressmaker Aunt Etta have mingled at the garden parties and galas with the Tobacco Wives and their husbands?   Also, Maddie is a dressmaker-in-training and has to take over when Aunt Etta is hospitalized. Could she really have made or altered that many party dresses in just a few weeks with only a part time helper?

^ ^ ^ ^ ^  I discovered the cozy gardening mysteries by Ann Ripley when I picked up #4 from the hotel lobby bookshelf in New Zealand.  I've been bingeing them-- #1-#3 were available as audiobooks, so I listened to those.  I've subsequently read #5.   Louis Eldridge is the host of a PBS gardening show and just happens to solve a few murders on the side.  

(The one with the title cut off is Harvest of Murder.)