Jeannie was a solid working board member for many years, which she fitted in with a full range of other commitments. I can't remember when I met her, but we got better acquainted when I was on the Grant Cottage staff as site interpreter for a couple of seasons in 2009-10. Since then I would run into her from time to time at events or at the cottage. We'd discuss and argue in friendly fashion about this and that -- board and regional politics, local history, preservation and journalism. It was always a pleasure.
I didn't know she had died until yesterday, when I was volunteering at the cottage and Ben Kemp told me. He said Jeannie had taken lately to spending more time sitting on the porch there.
Fortunately I had time, when my shift ended, to go down the hill to Gurn Springs Cemetery on Ballard Road for the last service. I found the grave of legendary Grant Cottage caretaker Suye Narita Gambino, who died in 1984, and her husband Anthony. (They were the hosts when my girlfriend -- now wife -- Barbara and I first visited the cottage in 1983.) Suye was a good friend of Jeannie.
Then the family and other mourners arrived, including a couple of board members I knew. I joined in some prayers, and in scattering earth over the urn which contained Jeannie's ashes when it was placed below ground level.
A life well lived.
(Reginald Adams with his mural in Galveston, Texas)
My friend Steve Trimm (portraying Grant) and I will be doing a program at Grant Cottage on Monday. That's June 19 -- Juneteenth -- which will be the focus of our presentations. My PowerPoint lecture (with Q&A) will be more about Gordon Granger than this essay I wrote and posted here last year, but along the same general lines. Steve's presentation is at noon, mine at 1 p.m. See here:
Jun 19 2023 The History Behind Juneteenth - Monday, Jun 19, 2023 - Saratoga Springs, NY Events
I had the honor of giving the fine actor Treat Williams, who died Monday as the result of a motorcycle accident, his first tour of Grant Cottage on July 10, 2014. He was a pleasant, interested and knowledgeable visitor.
Diana O'Brien, on left in photo, was then dressed as the poet Emily Dickinson for a program, and is now a board member of The Friends of Grant Cottage. Williams became an honorary board member and spoke at last year's fund-raiser. He also wrote and performed a one-man play about Ulysses S. Grant.
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This is a reference to a sentence in my Preface and Acknowledgments which said: "I somewhat guiltily acknowledge frequent use of the online Wikipedia encyclopedia, while not relying on it as a cited source."
If that needs clarifying, what I meant was I did not use Wikipedia as a source but as a very useful tool. I bet most historians and other inquiring minds also use it, whether or not they are prepared to admit doing so. Yes, it may be slanted, itself insufficiently sourced, or even, on rare occasion, sabotaged. But I have found it generally accurate and a good first reference when first looking up someone or something.
I gave a couple of graciously received local talks last week, one to the Capital District Civil War Round Table (see photo below) in Watervliet, NY, and the other to the Academy for Lifelong Learning in Saratoga Springs.
The latter presentation was about my novel The Last Circle of Ulysses Grant. Published in 2018 by Square Circle Press and still in print, it has drawn less attention than the two biographies published by Casemate, but may be my favorite book -- which could be why I'm now working on (or at least planning) another novel.
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The new (to me) one is from the Midwest Book Review (scroll down to their Civil War Shelf) -- to whom a tip of the hat. It is anonymous and very short:
"With a special appeal and relevance to readers with an interest in the abolitionist movement to end slavery in Kansas and Missouri, the American Civil War in general, and the role of Union Colonel James Montgomery and his African-American troops in particular, 'James Montgomery: Abolitionist Warrior' is as informatively detailed [as] it is inherently fascinating. ... an extraordinary and welcome contribution to the growing library of American Civil War histories and biographies."
A yet newer review is of a considerably older book, the Granger biography which was published in 2013 and reissued in paperback last year. It's by Meg Groeling, to whom go my thanks for another positive review, and appears in the January 2023 print edition of Civil War News, but does not seem to be online yet. (They reviewed my Montgomery book last October.)
The guy in the middle hosts an annual picnic in the park at this time of year, where we three friends often meet up, and did yesterday. We...
