September opened a new campaign year, with our commander inviting Claire to speak about possible field trips for October 25th (see related post in Brigade news), and talking about how Jack Stanley’s curiosity led to the amazing discovery of forgotten historical documents in a cornerstone in downtown Bethlehem and an invitation to to place a pop-up civil war display in town during the Christmas shopping season.
Laura introduced our featured speaker - Ron Kirkwood who returned to the roundtable to talk about his second book on the Spangler Farm and the strories of soldiers and families connected to that site.
Kirkwood, who led roundtable members on an up close and personal tour of the farm a few years ago, kept the room in rapt attention throughout his presentation. Finally amazing us all, he revealed that in his genealogies of families connected to the farm he discovered that his own was among them!
“Tell Mother Not to Worry”: Soldier Stories From Gettysburg’s George Spangler Farm is a wonderful product from the mind, research, and pen of Kirkwood who retired after a 40-year career in newspapers and magazines including USA TODAY, Baltimore Sun, Harrisburg (PA) Patriot-News, York (PA) Daily Record and Midland (Mich.) Daily News. He is a Michigan native and a graduate of Central Michigan University (just like our own Gary Schnell), where he has returned as guest speaker to journalism classes as part of the school’s Hearst Visiting Professionals series. Ron and his wife of 49 years, Barbara, now live near their grandkids in the deer-filled countryside outside of Pittsburgh.
As always we held our monthly book raffle for preservation, with the winners pictured below.
