Disclaimer: While I am a History Major, I am not the Go-To person for the History of North Augusta. I decided to write this blog to let people know about the history of the area, since it seems to be spread on several different websites. This way there is one site that has multiple links.
Most citizens of North Augusta are aware that at least two towns preceded North Augusta before 1912. Those were Campbell town (1770) and the town of Hamburg (1821). However, most do not realize that there was a indian trading post in the location of present day North Augusta before Augusta, Georgia itself came into existence.
Savannah Town was created sometime in the 1670’s as an Indian trading post. It was known as the last sign of civilization for settlers journeying out West. Savannah Town was a strategic point, and traded goods from the Indians were sent down the Savannah River and then over land to Charleston. Eventually due to the Yemassee War, Fort Moore was created in 1715 to protect settlers from the Yemassee. It was a tense time to live in South Carolina, for while being attacked from the mainland from the Yemassee, pirates were raiding the coast. For more information on the Yemassee War see this link: http://ourgeorgiahistory.com/wars/Georgia_Wars/yamasee_war.html. For more information on Fort Moore: http://mdgroover.iweb.bsu.edu/GPR%20Ft.%20Moore.htm
Savannah Town was then adopted into the New Windsor Township around 1730. It seems to be that the Township was mostly settled by Swiss Settlers. However, around 1735, Augusta, Georgia was founded across the Savannah River. This was the coffin nail for Savannah Town, a trend that would cause the demise of other towns that set up across the river from Augusta, Georgia. Augusta distracted traders away from South Carolina, as Georgia had more access to different Indian Tribes. The town would be officially declared dead by the mid 1760’s. Fort Moore would be closed around the same time, but had one final act harboring refugees and militia during the Cherokee War. By the late 1700’s New Windsor Township became a part of the Orangeburg District within the St. Matthew’s Parish. However, by the 1800’s South Carolina began renaming areas using the County system, and New Windsor and the area North Augusta now inhabits became a part of Edgefield County.
For more information on Savannah Town and New Windsor Township see the following links:
Campbell Town was located near current Hammonds Ferry and the North Augusta Recreation Department. It was created by John Hammond in 1770. Like Savannah Town, the town was a fur trade and Indian trade center, but meant to compete with a very young Augusta, Georgia. However, Hammond did not take warning of Savannah Town’s demise. “Competition between tobacco growers and warehouse owners grew so intense that river boat ferries were destroyed, John Hammond was killed, and his house was burned. With the tobacco and fur trade bypassing Campbell Town, the town did not survive”. http://www.northaugusta.net/Community/History/tabid/72/Default.aspx
By the time Hamburg came into existence, Campbell town was mostly a ghost town. Henry Shultz , a German immigrant and the founder of Hamburg had a dream of building a town in the bluffs of South Carolina. In 1821, he founded the town, though through many struggles. However, the town boomed once connected by the longest railroad in the world in 1833: The Charleston-Hamburg Railroad. “At that point in time, the railroad was the longest railroad in the world, being 136 miles long and not long after the town exploded with commerce. Augusta created the Augusta Canal in 1845 to try to keep up with Hamburg’s success. The canal directed boats from the rapids in the Savannah River into Augusta, making it easier for farmers living in the upstate of Georgia and South Carolina to ship their goods down the river. This diverted most river commerce from Hamburg. However it was the creation of the Charleston to Hamburg Railroad that would lead to the demise of Hamburg as a booming trade town. Since farmers lived along the railroad, they now had an easier way of shipping goods to Charleston, than taking several days to travel by wagon down to Charleston. But now, the farmers had no need to go up to Hamburg when they could go to a station along the route and ship their goods. With the canal cutting off river commerce, and the railroad cutting off Hamburg from trade as well, the town began to die.
When the Columbia and Greenville railroads were built, farmers from the upstate did not have to travel to Hamburg to ship goods to Charleston. The final nail in the coffin for Hamburg was the extension of the Charleston Rail road in to Augusta in 1853. This created a triangle of commerce, from Charleston to Augusta to Savannah, or vice versa. This move destroyed Hamburg, and merchants left the town. Since Hamburg was a town of commerce, not many people actually lived in the town. By the start of the Civil War, Hamburg was nothing more than a ghost town. After the Civil War, the location of Hamburg and the fact that no whites lived there made it an ideal place for former slaves and refugee blacks to live” (Elizabeth Layne: The Changing Views of the Hamburg Massacre, 2008).
This would lead up to the most explosive point in the history of the area of North Augusta. On July, 4th 1876, Whites living in Edgefield were angry that access to the bridge into Augusta was blocked by Black Soldiers stationed in Hamburg doing a parade demonstration for the Country’s 100th anniversary. Four days later, a group of White men came to the Hamburg Court House to charge the soldiers. The trial was very tense, and by that evening white men from Edgefield including future U.S. Senator and Founder of Clemson Ben Tillman, and the surrounding area met at the court-house, and terror let loose. It is estimated that 300 White men showed up. In the end, 8 Black men were murdered in a vicious way, and one white man Mckie Meriwether, killed by a stray bullet (not known if killed by the soldiers or by friendly fire). One black man was killed by repeated blows by a hatchet, and though it was clear he was dead, they bashed his head until it was mush. The white crowd was tried in the Aiken Courthouse, since Hamburg was now in Aiken County ( a county created by Black Freedman). None were convicted. This created outrage in the North, especially with Harper’s Weekly.
Ben Tillman would later be quoted to saying: “It had been the settled purpose of the leading white men of Edgefield to seize the first opportunity that the Negroes might offer to provoke a riot and teach the Negroes a lesson; and it was generally believed nothing but bloodshed and a good deal of it could answer the purpose of redeeming the state…It was our purpose to attend the trial to see that the young men had protection and if any opportunity offered to provoke a row, and if one did not offer, we were to make one.” Quote from Simkins, South Carolina During Reconstruction, 487. Original Quote from a Tillman Speech, The Struggles of ’76.
Much of the Hamburg Massacre is now forgotten, however there is one remaining marker put up by the young town of North Augusta, one that many North Augustans drive by everyday. A marker dedicated to Mckie Meriwether in 1916 with the inscription:
“In life he exemplified the highest ideal of Anglo-Saxon Civilization. By his death he assured to the children of his beloved land the supremacy of that ideal”.
After the unveiling of the monument, the town went to a showing of Birth of a Nation, a film about the Ku Klux Klan. The Hamburg incident would be called the Hamburg Riot in the South, and the Hamburg Massacre in the North.
(Bridge to Hamburg, later washed out by floods)
By the time North Augusta was founded, Hamburg was a ghost town. Many blacks fled the area afraid of a repeat of the massacre. In 1911 and 1929, a floods came through the area, and washed away many building that had been a part of Hamburg. North Augusta also expanded over the original town, and all that is left is an area called Carpentersville with a few ruins nearby. However, personally I have not found any of these ruins, and if anyone knows where they are, and if it’s legal to access it. I would appreciate it.
As you can see, there are many aspects of North Augusta’s History that have been forgotten. While it is not exactly North Augusta’s History, it is the history of the land and culture of the area. If you know of any stories of North Augusta and its Predecessors, please post. I am also looking for any remains of Campbell Town and Hamburg if anyone knows of any.
For more information on Hamburg and the Hamburg Massacre please refer to Peter Hughes’s Hamburg page http://www.arete-designs.com/hamburg/
There is more information given than I included in this blog. Also if using anything from this blog please be sure to cite. I have done a lot of hard work as the historians who came before me have done.


I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection (Freud, 1930/1961a, p32).
Much literature has been devoted to the infant’s relationship with its parents, yet the importance of fathers to infants is still very much under-researched. This article focuses on the father’s contribution to the child’s development during infancy. Several themes emerge: the supportive father; the father object; the parental couple; the father and separation; the father and gender identity.
From the time of conception, the father’s support is valuable for both the mother and the infant. Even the knowledge that the father is thinking about the infant provides the mother some relief and allows her to risk forgetting her child and have mental time out (Marks, 2002).
According to Winnicott (1960), the father’s role with the newborn is protecting the mother/child relationship. This provides a secure environment for the mother, which in turn enables her to provide a nurturing environment for the baby. The father can offer both physical and emotional support. Physically he can help with practical matters. Emotionally the father’s support allows the mother to cope better with the frustrations of motherhood (Winnicott 1964). In some cases, the father is required to provide parenting for the mother who is struggling with the demands of mothering (Tuttman, 1986). Of course, fathers can also be 'good mothers' — providing a sensitive and responsive quality of parenting.
The idea of an internal mental and emotional world is central to much psychotherapy. In this inner world, we create representations of other people that are referred to as 'objects'. These objects, created in early childhood, profoundly influence later emotional and mental health. As such, understanding how these internal objects are formed is of central importance.
It is generally understood that the mother-infant pair is experienced by the infant as a single entity. As such the mother object comes into being by being separated out from the merged mother-infant dyad. In other words the infant experiences the mother as emerging from within.
How the father object develops is a matter of debate. Many writers argue that there is a significant difference in how the mother object and the father object develop. They hold the father is the first object to come from the external world, entering the infant’s consciousness from the outside.
Following on from this various authors argue that the father and mother object have different qualities. Davids (2002) maintains that the two objects occupy two mental domains of the infant; the mother’s domain is that of nurturing, comforting and attending to the infant’s needs, whereas the father’s domain consists of boundary setting and reality testing. Similarly Wisdom (1976) explains that the father encourages the infant to tolerate frustrations, and to bear difficulties.
Many writers have noted that fathers are often more exhilarating, interactional, playful and stimulating than mothers in the way they relate to the infant. This include encouraging muscular activity, a sense of body self and exploration of space.
According to attachment theory, a secure relationship is essential to healthy development (Bowlby, 1988). While the mother is usually the first person with whom the infant forms an attachment, infants also develop attachments with a small number of other individuals including fathers. As such the father offers an alternative attachment figure and a bridge to the external world.
A strong relationship between the father and mother provides security and safety for the infant. This provides the infant a “rock to which he can cling and against which he can kick” (Winnicott, 1964, p.115). There is some evidence that if the parental couple is missing in the mother’s (or father’s) mind, it can lead to an impairment to the infant’s capacity to think clearly. The infant may feel forbidden to think about one parent in the presence of the other (McDougall 1989). This interferes with the infant’s ability to think creatively (Feldman, 1989). Indeed, Marks (2002) cites evidence that links poor parental relationship and impaired cognitive and social development in the child.
The father becomes an important figure who can assist the child in separating from the mother and provide a way into the world (Mahler & Gosliner, 1955). Indeed, an infant who lacks the assistance of a third may struggle to emerge from the maternal relationship (Greenspan 1982). Thus the father plays a crucial role in the disentanglement from the mother (Abelin 1975). One way the father can do this by spending time with the infant away from the mother, knowing that the child can be returned to a secure base with the mother (Bowlby 1969; Trowell, 2002).
Coming to terms with the anatomical differences of sexes is an important and necessary milestone. Benjamin (1988) asserts that the father’s role in assisting differentiation of self makes a vital contribution to gender identity formation.
Many feminist psychoanalysts argue that the boy is at an advantage during this time, one reason being that he has more motivation to separate from the mother because he does not want to be associated with dependency. Society’s perception of the father as the powerful other is also advantageous to the boy in the formation of gender identity.
For boys, fathers tend to respond more to their son’s needs and form a more intense bond of identification (Lamb 1981 and Gunsberg 1982). Further, the father may recognise in his son’s need his own need to dis-identify with his own mother which contributes to him treating his son differently to his daughter (Benjamin, 1988). Benjamin (1991) adds that in addition to the mother’s support of the boy's move towards independence, the boy is able to recognises himself in his father and to feel both protected and powerful like him. Loewald (1951) contends that the boy dreads re-engulfment by the mother and that identification with the father provides support against a fear of fusion with the mother.
Under optimal conditions, the father plays many roles for both the infant and the mother. From the infant’s conception, the father supports the mother by providing a secure environment, protecting the mother-infant child relationship, (Winnicott, 1960). If required he may provide ‘fathering’ or ‘mothering’ to the mother (Tuttman, 1986). Like the ‘good enough mother’ the ‘good enough father’ is not required to be perfect. Rather, he is required to fail from time to time, enabling the infant to develop.
The father assists the infant in separation from the mother (Mahler et al., 1975). He provides a source of early identification and offers support against re-engulfment by the mother (Loewald, 1951). The father is a model of work and the world (Winnicott, 1964) and represents progression, independence, activity (Chodorow, 1989), boundary-setting and reality-testing (Davids, 2002). He assists in the formation of gender identity (Stoller, 1968) and finally he provides a real relationship for the infant (Winnicott, 1964).
Under optimal conditions, the actual (real) father both offers a real relationship and contributes towards the development of the father object. The actual father, being a male, possesses qualities and attributes that are different to the mother. It is not only his role that influences the infant, but the father by his very essence is different to the mother (Forrest, 1966) and the infant can distinguish these subtleties in his presence.
Under optimal conditions, both father and mother are attuned to each other’s and the infant’s needs. It is the complexities of these relationships that contribute to the infant’s development. The father is one half of the ‘parental couple’ and the presence of this relationship in the parent’s mind is important to the infant (Marks, 2002).
This paper has explored psychoanalysis’ growing appreciation of the role of the father for infants. This includes the complex dynamics with the mother and the ‘parental couple’, and the many variables that may affect the quality of fathering provided. Furthermore, the absence of ‘good enough fathering’ and its possible consequences and implications have been briefly explored.
While mindful of the complexities of the role of the ‘father’, and differing theoretical perspectives in the reviewed literature, I argue that the ‘good enough’ father plays a pivotal role in the infant’s emotional development.
Abelin, E. (1975). Some further observations and comments on the
earliest role of the father. International Journal of Psychoanalysis,
Benjamin, J. (1988). The bonds of love: Psychoanalysis, feminism and the problem of domination. New York: Panther Books.
Benjamin, J. (1991). Father and daughter: Identification with difference - A contribution to gender heterodoxy. Psychoanalytic Dialogue, 1, 277-299.
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Attachment (Vol. 1). New York: Basic Books.
Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Clinical applications of attachment theory. London: Routledge.
Chodorow, N. (1989). Feminism and psychoanalytic theory. New Haven Yale University Press.
Davids, M. (2002). Fathers in the internal world. In J. Trowell & A. Etchegoyen (Eds.), The importance of fathers (pp. 67-92). New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Feldman, M. (1989). The Oedipus complex: Manifestations in the inner world and the therapeutic situation. In R. Brittain, M. Feldman & E. O'Shaughnessy (Eds.), The Oedipus complex today (pp. 102-128). London: Karnac Books.
Forrest, T. (1966). Paternal roots of female character development. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 3, 21-37.
Freud, S. (1961a). Civilisation and its discontents. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 21, pp. 57-145). London: Hogarth Press. (Original published 1930)
Greenspan, S. (1982). The second other. In S. H. Cath, A. Gurwitt & J. M. Ross (Eds.), Father and child: Developmental and clinical perspectives (pp. 123-139). Boston: Little Brown.
Gunsberg, L. (1982). Selected critical review of psychological investigations of the early-father-infant relationship. In S. H. Cath, A. Gurwitt & J. M. Ross (Eds.), Father and child: Developmental and clinical perspectives. (pp. 65-82). Boston: Little Brown
Lamb, M. E. (1981). The development of father-infant relations. In M. E. Lamb (Ed.), The role of the father in child development. (pp. 459-488). New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Loewald, H. W. (1951). Ego and reality. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 32, 3-20.
Mahler, M. S., & Gosliner, B. J. (1955). On symbiotic child psychosis: Genetic, dynamic and restitutive aspects. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 10, 195-212.
Mahler, M. S., Pine, F., & Bergman, A. (Eds.). (1975). The psychological birth of the human infant. New York: Basic Books.
Marks, M. (2002). Letting fathers in. In J. Trowell & A. Etchegoyen (Eds.), The importance of fathers (pp. 93-106). New York: Brunner-Routledge.
McDougall, J. (1989). Theatres of the body. London: Free Association Books.
Stoller, R. J. (Ed.). (1968). Sex and gender. New York: Aronson.
Tuttman, S. (1986). The father's role in the child's development in the capacity to deal with separation and loss. Journal of American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 14, 309-322.
Winnicott, D. W. (1960). The theory of the parent-infant relationship. In D. W. Winnicott (Ed.), The maturational processes of the facilitating environment: Studies in the theory of emotional development (pp. 37-55). New York: International Universities Press.
Winnicott, D. W. (Ed.). (1964). The child, the family and the outside world. London: Penguin Books.
Wisdom, J. (1976). The role of the father in the mind of parents, in psychoanalytic theory and in the life of the infant. International Review of Psycho-analysis Journal of Psychoanalysis, 3, 231-239.


The Internet is undeniably the biggest resource of information in our times. Traditionally, web pages and emails are the main mediums of information transfer on the Internet. However, as we develop technologies that make information transfer more robust we begin to see more information transfer mediums being used.
Two of the most popular methods of information transfer on the Internet are electronic books (often referred to as ebooks) and audiobooks (an online spin of traditional cassette and CD audiobooks). In this article, I will describe the advantages of both ebooks and audiobooks.


Mike Rhodes, Board of Director President, welcomed everyone and provided a quick overview of the meeting agenda, members on the Board of Directors and Association management and staff.
Captain RJ Earley of the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office reported the latest issues from the Loudoun County Sheriff’s office and preventive crime tips.
Matt Sartorius, Vice President of Stone Springs Hospital, provided an update on the latest news and developments from the hospital.
Morgan Fry, Head of Teen Services at Gum Spring Library, provided information on library services and upcoming events hosted by the library.
Suzanne Lyles and Sam Woodard, Parent Liaisons for Loudoun County Public Schools, discussed their roles and how they assist students and families.
Malisa Haley, Board President for Dulles South Food Pantry, gave information on the pantry, what they are doing this holiday season and how residents can get involved.
Mike Rhodes and Jared Midwood, staff aid for Supervisor Matt Letourneau, provided an update on recent community development, including the Northstar Boulevard and Whitman South projects, and the ongoing redistricting process.
Mike Rhodes, reported on the 2022 budget and assessments.
Freddy Zambrano was introduced and discussed the duties of the Architectural Review committee.
Barbara Furst was introduced and discussed the duties of the Covenants committee.
Jamel Sparkes was introduced and discussed the duties of the Strategic Planning and Playground and Tot Lot committees and provided information on the Strategic Planning survey.
Marilyn Betsill was introduced and discussed the duties of the Communications Committee, provided an update on the Association’s methods of communication and how residents can get engaged and stay informed.
Todd Rogers, Chair of the Elections Committee announced the results of the 2021 Board of Directors election. Congratulations to Christopher Kimrey and Ramu Mundrathi and Denise Harrover!
Door Prizes, including a $500 VISA gift card, 40’ HDTV, Ninja Blender, GoPro Camera plus several gift baskets and gift cards from local businesses, were raffled away.
The remaining prizes were raffled away on Facebook Live on Wednesday, Nov 17. Winners will be contacted individually and will need to come by the Association office to claim their prize.


Yes, today is the day Nightstalkers: Time Patrol is live. This book marks a turning point because the Nighstalkers transition in this story into the Time Patrol and from here on out that will be their mission. The next book will be out in August and it’s Time Patrol: Black Tuesday. I’ve already picked the dates for the next two books after that: Time Patrol: Ides of March and Time Patrol: Valentines Day Massacre.
Time travel has always fascinated me, especially if you accept the premise that if its ever invented, then it exists now. I’m merging the world and theories I invented in my Atlantis series into the Time Patrol:
Hidden deep beneath the Metropolitan Museum of Art is the Time Patrol, a secret agency charged with protecting the world’s timeline from the evil forces who wish to alter it. When the Patrol disappears without a trace, only twelve short hours are left before all life on Earth ceases to exist.
Enter: the Nightstalkers. Summoned to find the Time Patrol, the Nightstalkers’ elite covert operatives begin to notice rifts in their own worlds. And when they realize one of their colleagues has vanished into thin air, the mission gets personal.
From battling krakens and Valkyries to breaching the mythical Bermuda Triangle, the Nightstalkers must risk everything to defeat the malicious forces manipulating time itself. But if they lose, it won’t just mean the end of the world—it will mean the total destruction of the past, the present, and the future.
Brimming with sci-fi action, Time Patrol continues bestselling author Bob Mayer’s pulse-pounding Nightstalkers series.
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When It Changed. From Nighstalkers: The Time Patrol published tomorrow!
It had changed for Foreman, closing in on 70 years of service, in February 1945 in an area called the Devils Sea, off the coast of Japan, in the waning days of World War II. The event was after he and his pilot were forced to ditch because of engine trouble. Minutes later the rest of their squadron simply vanished into a strange mist in that enigmatic part of the world. No trace of the other planes or crews were ever found.
Then it was reinforced in December of that same year, the war finally over, on the other side of the world, when he begged off a mission because of the same premonition he’d had before the Devils Sea flight, and watched Flight 19 disappear from the radar in an area called the Bermuda Triangle.
He’d determined then and there, that he had to know the Truth.
So he’d gone from the Marine Corps, into the short-lived pre-cursor to the CIA, the Central Intelligence Group in 1946, then morphed with it into the CIA, where he moved upward, and, much more importantly inward, into the darkness of the most covert parts of various branches whose letters and designations changed over the years, but their missions grew more and more obscure, to the point where he’d outlived and outserved all his contemporaries so no one in the present was quite sure who exactly he worked for any more or what his mission was.
If he worked for anyone at all.
Not that anyone really cared.
He was now known as the Crazy Old Man in the covert bowels of the Pentagon and by some other names, associated with bowel movements.
How crazy he was, some people were about to discover.
Cleopatra’s Needle pierced the sudden downpour with the relative indifference of granite, having faced the many depredations of time in its 3,500 some-odd years of existence. However, just one hundred years in New York City’s weather has done more damage to the hieroglyphics on the four faces of the obelisk, particularly the southwest corner, than over three millennia in Egypt’s much drier climate. It wasn’t the rain as much as the acid pollution rising from the city, some of which came back down in the rain.
Edith Frobish hated the rain, for more than just the damage it did to the Needle. Still, she paused, as she always did, to look at the ancient Egyptian monument set, strangely, in Central Park in the middle of Manhattan, in the middle of New York City, far from its origin. The fact the obelisk had nothing to do with Cleopatra VII (yes, there were six before that one, but none had achieved her fame/infamy so only the historically finicky who added the number—count Edith among those who did) was a trick of historical ‘publicity’, more notoriety, that Edith would never understand. Why name something for someone who had had nothing to do with it, other than ruling briefly a thousand years after the Needle was commissioned by the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh, good old, Thutmose III? He was considered the ‘Napoleon of Egypt”, expanding the Empire to its widest breadths, but did anyone remember his name? Nope. But they remembered Cleopatra, seventh with that name. Plus, few knew or cared there had been six Cleopatra’s before the one who’d bedded mighty Caesar, then not-quite-as-mighty Marc Antony, and then had a date with a snake.
Was it just because she’d snagged and shagged two notable Romans? Edith found such an idea misogynist in the extreme. Which shows that despite her brilliance and degrees, there was much she didn’t know about the real world.
When It Changed for Moms from Time Patrol published in two days, on Tuesday
It changed for Moms by figuratively traveling into her past, both in place and time. She was already in the place, having made the drive of tears back home. She was sitting on the front porch of the abandoned shotgun shack where she’d grown up in the middle of Nowhere, Kansas. Interstate 80 was to the south, across the flat plains, but so far away that no sound traveled from the eighteen-wheelers racing across the middle of the country.
There was no other house in sight, just slightly undulating miles and miles of fields, and despite all the years since she’d left, Moms still had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. It had started when she’d entered Kansas and grown stronger every mile she drew closer to ‘home’. The house was empty, long deserted. Her younger brothers never came out here, smarter than she was, understanding some memories only brought pain.
It seemed Moms was a masochist, going back to her roots in order to remember.
But sometimes, going into the past is necessary in order to move forward.
There are variations on that, such as changing the present in order to move forward, which Moms was soon to be discover.
And what are your thoughts on this possible cover for the next book in the series: Time Patrol: Black Tuesday?


bookworm wednesday – ender’s game
i have plenty of newly-released books on my to-read list, but when i overheard my brother-in-law recommending this book to my husband, i remembered that the sci-fi “classic” has been on my i-should-read list for quite some time. so this week’s bookworm review is of an oldie that is still going strong: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (4 of 5 stars).
set in earth’s future, the novel presents humankind in conflict with an alien species called “buggers” by the humans. in preparation for an anticipated third invasion of the buggers, an international fleet has a school to train future commanders…among very young children. the world’s most talented children, including andrew “ender” wiggin, are taken as early as age six to a battle school where teachers train them in the arts of war through increasingly difficult games in zero gravity.
card’s takes a potential contrived plot and creates something extraordinary with skillful development of his main character’s genius, brutality, and vulnerability, and clever pacing in revealing the complexity of the tactical games.
some of the major underlying themes at play here are the same as another wildly popular story about a game — violence among children and the government taking children from their families. the moral dilemmas presented in ender’s game are the source of much criticism toward the book.
i truly enjoyed the story, and then i listened to an interview with the author (regarding this novel) that gave me an even deeper appreciation for ender and his game. i want to read more books in ender’s saga and also the ender’s shadow series, and am now really looking forward to the movie due out next year.
how do you feel when reading dystopian books like ender’s game and the hunger games that address political and moral issues so directly? why do you think these types of books become so popular?


(Via Ho’okele News)
The Hickam Library is not just for books any more. It offers audio and e-books, music, online learning and other ways to expand the mind.
Library know how is offered one Saturday a month. It is a free instructional session where adult and young patrons can learn how to get the most out of this resource on base. This month’s session will be held Saturday.
The session includes a refresher on the Dewey Decimal system, so customers can find the subject they are looking for within the rows of shelves.
Young children are shown the joy of reading through pre-school story time, which is held on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month.
Themes change each session, often matching the season, holiday or special occasion. Parents are encouraged to bring their children down to the library to be entertained through the stories.
The library also holds special activities and events intended to not only encourage reading, but also other forms of expression.
A friendship book exchange will be held on Feb. 12. Children can bring a new, wrapped book and exchange it for another.
In March, the library will start a book club for fourth and fifth graders that will meet once a month. Also in March, the library will begin accepting submissions for the annual creative writing contest. Patrons from ages 6 to adult are encouraged to submit their original short story or poem.
All these activities are free. For more information, stop by to talk with the staff or call 449-8299.


The search filters
Note: These features are part of the Visforms Subscription and are not included in the free Visforms version.
Use of search tools in the form of search filters
Note: Please make sure you have installed your Visforms Subscription.
With the help of the Visforms Subscription you can display search tools in the form of search filters in the data views in the frontend. These search filters offer extensive options for filtering and sorting transmitted data.
To do this, go to the menu management and open a menu entry of the type
- Visforms » Form Data,
- Visforms » Data View with Edit Link or
- Visforms » My Transmissions.
The “Show search filter” option is there under the “Form data display options” tab.
Set the “Show search filters” option to “yes” to show the search filters in the data view. You will then find the search filters in the data view.
Visforms automatically generates the search filters according to the settings in
- the form configuration,
- the field configuration as well
- the settings for the data views in the frontend.
Which field types can be used in the search filter
For all fields of the following types, you can decide whether selection list boxes with the permitted selection values should be displayed in the search tools:
- list box,
- list box sql,
- radio button,
- radio button sql,
- checkbox group,
- Checkbox Group Sql and
- check box.
You can also integrate the following field types into the search filter:
The data of all other field types can be searched textually using the search box.
Add fields to the search filter
Go to the field configuration and select the “Advanced” tab. Under “Usage”, set the “Filter field” option to “yes”. This adds the selection lists of the possible values to the search filters. This applies to Listbox, Listbox Sql, Radio Button, Radio Button Sql, Checkbox Group, Checkbox Group Sql and Checkbox fields.
Search filter when using the “Content Plugin - Visforms Data”
If you display form data in the frontend using the Content Plugin - Visforms Data then you need to use the corresponding plugin parameter to enable the display of search filters. The overview of the plugin parameters can be found here: Parameter List.


- This event has passed.
Ritu’s Calc I RPM Session
10.31.21 @ 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm
|Recurring Event (See all)
An event every week that begins at 4:00 pm on Sunday, repeating until 12.5.21
Drop by the Lee House Library anytime between 4 and 7 PM for help with Webwork, to work on Calc with your classmates, or to learn more about the RPM program!


Guest Post By Erna Grasz, CEO/Founder, Asante Africa Foundation
In my own childhood, I was an extreme “bookworm”, particularly when my family struggled through difficult times I turned to, and found comfort in the pages of books. The magic of books often sent me on a journey to explore alternative universes, shared knowledge with me and helped me find answers to questions I was too afraid to ask adults. Words, numbers and math were a source of entertainment; worlds to enter, puzzles to be solved and predictable methods that did not require anyone to like me, but they nourished me beyond my imagination.
And now, in this digital era, access and opportunity to attain global literacy is transforming how we are approaching the road to getting there.
Besides my own experience, I have personally witnessed what literacy is doing for global youth today. I routinely meet young girls who are holding a book for the first time, excited to unravel the knowledge between those pages. I have seen young boys’ eyes light up when they make the connection between what they’ve read or studied to their own real life, often eager to return home to help their parents not get cheated on their next visit to the marketplace.
Literacy is about creating personal self-confidence, seeking and attaining knowledge, developing skills, cultivating courage and achieving dreams. Literacy gives hope and keeps the future alive. On this International Literacy Day, join me in reflecting on what it means to you and what it means on the global stage.


Flétta (Twine) (2009-2011) for choir, chamber choir and ensemble. Poems by Pétur Gunnarsson, Sjón, Hannes Pétursson, Snorri Hjartarson, Stefán Hörður Grímsson and Þorsteinn frá Hamri. 55 minutes.
First performance: Reykjavík June 2011, Mótettukórinn, Scola Cantorum, Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra, Hörður Áskelsson.
Flétta (Twine) combines poetry by living and deceased Icelandic poets where nature is the common theme. It discusses the sublime beauty of nature, our affiliation with it and our responsibility for it. Six very short poems by Sjón, sung by the chamber choir, are interlinked with longer poems of older generation poets, sung by the large choir. The poetry ranges from hailing the spring to images depicting desolate landscape. The piece is a journey through the seasons.
Recording: LH-CD/DVD-001- Mótettukórinn, Scola Cantorum, Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra, Hörður Áskelsson. Available from firstname.lastname@example.org


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In Erik Larson’s tantalizing book, The Devil in the White City, we are faced with a choice, “between good and evil, daylight and darkness, the White City and the Black” (xi). On the good side, the reader has Daniel Burnham, a man who is building up the city of Chicago after the great fire that destroyed most of its infrastructure. Burnham has seen many defeats in life but has also been entrusted with bringing the World’s Fair to Chicago. On the bad side, there is a man by the name of Henry Howard Holmes or H.H. Holmes for short. This man walked off the train claiming to be a doctor, and as such “[h]e walked with confidence and dressed well, conjuring [the] impression of wealth and achievement” (35). Holmes was brand new to the city of Chicago and decided to take up residency in “a village called Englewood in the town of Lake, a municipality of 200,000 people that abutted Chicago’s southern-most boundary”(35). In The Devil in The White City, Daniel Burnham and H.H. Holmes are prime examples of the vast differences between good and evil in the windy city of Chicago.
When we first meet Burnham he is a down on his luck man who has tried many different jobs in life but ultimately failed at everything. Burnham wrote “[t]here is, a family tendency to get tired of doing the same thing [for] very long” (19). He has no interest in anything until he meets John Wellborn Root, a civil engineer from Atlanta who would eventually become Burnham’s business partner. In 1889, the city of Chicago citizens committee passed their resolution stating “[t]he men who have helped build Chicago want the fair, and, having a just and well-sustained claim, they intend to have it” (16). Burnham knew, after hearing this new decree, that it would take a lot of work to turn the city of Chicago into a venue worthy of having a World’s Fair. A french editor described Chicago as “[a] Gordian city, so excessive, so satanic” (28). Another depiction of the windy city came from author and publisher, Paul Lindan saying “ [Chicago is] a gigantic peep show of utter horror, but extraordinarily to the point” (28). The city was steeped in evil which helped draw malicious and devious characters like Dr. H.H. Holmes.
As readers dive deeper into this book they realize that the Chicago Times-Herald description of Holmes is correct saying, “ [he was] a prodigy of wickedness, a human demon, a being so unthinkable that no novelist would dare invent such a character. The story, too, tends to illustrate the end of the century” (370). Yet Holmes was also very charismatic, using this trait Holmes left a trail of deceit, heartbreak, fraud, and eventually murder in his wake. In the chapter “Don’t Be Afraid” readers also find out the real reason Holmes moved to Chicago:
“Holmes adored Chicago, adored in particular how the smoke and din could envelop a woman and leave no hint that she ever had existed, save perhaps a blade thin track of perfume amid the stench of dung, anthracite, and putrefaction” (62).
Holmes is the epitome of evil, he is rumored to have killed as many as 200 people from the time his Englewood mansion was completed to the time he was caught. The acts of H.H. Holmes drove the small village of Englewood to become the Black City.
Maneuvering through the complexities of good and evil in The Devil in The White City readers become entranced by the characters of Daniel Burnham and H.H. Holmes. As Burnham seeks to build up the decimated city of Chicago, Holmes finalizes plans for the castle in which he will commit his horrendous crimes. When work finishes on the site of the World’s Fair, bringing new light to the city of Chicago, the darkness inside of Holmes radiates through the village of Englewood transforming it into the Black City.
Larson, Erik. The Devil in The White City. Vintage, 2004.


Students at Gilmer Elementary and Intermediate school have enjoyed the opportunity to participate in the Silver Paws' Read 2 Me program. We had only expected to raffle off reading times to those students who met the required number of reading minutes in our Summer Reading Challenge. It was a wonderful surprise that the Silver Paws organization opted to read with every student who had met the reading challenge and we are grateful for the generosity that was extended to our students
Some students read over the summer for the pure joy of reading while many other students were motivated to read as they wanted to be in the drawing to read with one of the dogs in the Read 2 Me Program. Over the course of three days, the Silver Paws therapy dog teams were all so busy with our students that not everyone had an opportunity to hear all the comments and/or see all the reactions to the Read 2 Me visit, so I wanted to take a minute to share the following with you:
Some kindergarten students who are just beginning to read and some students who are reluctant readers, readily snuggled up to a dog and read and/or spoke to the dogs about the pictures and what happened in the story. Students who are just developing their literacy skills are often hesitant to read and sometimes view reading as a mundane chore. This is certainly not the case with the Read 2 Me dogs.
The dogs brought a calmness to the students and helped them relax and concentrate as reading took place in the library filled with other dogs, readers, parents, and staff members. The hustle and bustle that took place never distracted the student and/or dog. An ice cream truck could have driven through the library and not one student would have noticed!
It was wonderful to see all of the Read 2 Me humans engaging students in conversations about the book that was read and helping students to read.
As one student departed, she was sad and stated that when she went to the Intermediate school, the following year, that she would never have the opportunity to read to a Silver Paws dog. Once she was informed that the program extended into the Intermediate grades, she perked up and stated that she would be doing the reading challenge over the summer.
One particular dog, Henry, is part of the Glimer Elementary family. Down the 2nd grade hallway is a classroom that has a designated corner with a mat and sign with Henry’s name on it. The students look forward to the visit and know that they must behave in a particular manner for Henry to feel welcome and comfortable.
Brain research indicates that learning can be maximized when students have connections and feel comfortable rather than stressed. All the students had very positive interactions with the Read 2 Me program and it is my hope that students have come to learn that reading can be enjoyable, rewarding, and can have a social component of sharing thoughts and ideas with others, including canines. I most certainly will be working on ways to incorporate the Read 2 Me dogs in future events throughout the school year and incorporate the program into the Summer Reading Challenge at the end of the year.
Again, thank you for extending this wonderful opportunity to our students and for all the hard work and dedication of the dogs and their humans to such a wonderful cause.
Written By: Lisa Killebrew, Director of Literacy Gilmer ISD


In the past year, I’ve been focusing more on one of the roles that PlaceMatters is uniquely positioned to play—getting information from academics and researchers into the hands of practitioners. Because PlaceMatters bridges the research and tool/method development world and the practitioner world, we can help make sure practitioners are learning from research happening in universities on topics ranging from individual and group decision-making to tool development to effective data visualization.
Along these lines, I was recently sent a copy of the book “Who Counts? The Power of Participatory Statistics,” a collection of articles and case studies on the use of participatory data and information collection and knowledge sharing. The book, edited by Jeremy Holland at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, focuses on international development and describes best practices for a variety of participatory techniques.
The book’s introduction is packed with useful information and an overview of participatory statistic and grassroots data collection and use, and how recent improvements in methodology are making participatory research more robust. In addition, I was particularly interested in the chapter on Participatory 3D Modelling, by Giacomo Rambaldi of the Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation in the Netherlands.
Rambaldi discusses examples of the use of large 3D representations (generally the base of which is constructed using thin layers of durable material. Participants then add push pins, yarn, and other markers to represent their mental maps and knowledge of the area. Many features can then be verified using GPS, and the resulting maps are frequently more accurate than official maps. Rambaldi describes a process like this in Ethiopia that was geared toward helping the community repair environmental degradation from deforestation.
The mapping process in Ethiopia provided an opportunity for adults to remember and describe to youth what the environment had been like, and realize the impacts of deforestation on livelihoods. In addition, it provided an educational opportunity for all, since the mapping exercise meant participants thought about the connections between different parts of the ecosystem.
While this chapter was perhaps the most similar to work that PlaceMatters does in the U.S., there are many case studies and articles that are relevant to informed civic engagement in decision-making processes as well as the use of participatory statistics in evaluating program success. A few points that were raised overall, among projects around the world:
- Participatory GIS, research, modeling, etc. must be carefully designed to be authentically participatory and include not only the elite
- The information that comes out of participatory processes can lead to community empowerment, but also to the use of the data and information to further disempower residents—for example, identification of additional resources to be extracted by business or government. (PlaceMatters has been working on the flip side of this coin, advocating for the opening of datasets for the public to use).
- New technologies such as OpenStreetMap, Ushahidi’s Crowdmap, wikis, and mobile tech are making participatory research, data collection and statistics easier and more accurate.
While “Who Counts?” focuses on international projects, its take-home lessons resonate with anyone working on engaging community. Some of the methodologies described would be easily transferred to domestic settings, and could be an improvement on the way we are engaging (particularly in non-urban settings). The book is worth a look, even for those of us not in international development.


Public Radio Market presents the best of the products featured on your favorite public radio programs.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
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As Heard on Public Radio:
All Things Considered: The Mystery of Mounting Inequality
The Leanard Lopate Show: What Drives Income Inequality?
WGBH: Thomas Piketty on Income Inequality
PBS: Moyers & Company on Income Inequality
What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality.
In Paradise by Peter Matthiessen
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All Things Considered: In ‘Paradise,’ Finding Understanding in the Ruins
Weekend Edition: 'In Paradise,' Mattiessen Considers Our Capacity for Cruelty
Fresh Air: Peter Mattiessen on Writing & Zen Buddhism
NPR Reviews: In Paradise
In the winter of 1996, more than a hundred women and men of diverse nationality, background and belief gather at the site of a former concentration camp for an unprecedented purpose: a weeklong retreat during which they will offer prayer and witness at the crematoria and meditate in all weathers on the selection platform, while eating and sleeping in the quarters of the Nazi officers who, half a century before, sent more than a million Jews to their deaths. Clements Olin, an American academic of Polish descent, has come along, ostensibly to complete research on the death of a survivor, even as he questions what a non-Jew can contribute to the understanding of so monstrous a catastrophe. As the days pass, tensions, both political and personal, surface among the participants, stripping away any easy pretense to healing or closure. Finding himself in the grip of emotions and impulses of bewildering intensity, Olin is forced to abandon his observer’s role and to embrace a history his family has long suppressed,— and with it, the yearnings and contradictions of being fully alive.
Judy at Carnegie Hall
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Morning Edition: Remembering Judy Garland on Stage at Carnegie Hall
It’s been called “the greatest night in show business history.” Judy Garland performed at Carnegie Hall on this day in 1961. There were no flashing lights, no extravagant dance numbers, just Judy.
Grand Ukulele by Jake Shimabukuro
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Here & Now: Ukelele Sensation Jake Shimabukuro
Dinner Party: Icebreaker with Jake Shimabukuro
Morning Edition: The Mighty Uke Makes a Comeback
Jake Shimabukuro, Hawaiian ukulele phenom (and new Dad), offers up some funny baby antics. Jake’s most recent release is “Grand Ukulele” which was produced by Alan Parsons (the Beatles) and features a cover of Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep.”
The Story of the Jews by Simon Schama
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As Heard on Public Radio:
On Point: Simon Schama on “The Story of the Jews”
PBS: The Story of the Jews
The Diane Rehm Show: The Story of the Jews
NPR: Review: The Story of the Jews
KQED: The Story of the Jews
In this magnificently illustrated cultural history—the tie-in to the PBS and BBC series The Story of the Jews—Simon Schama details the story of the Jewish experience, tracing it across three millennia, from their beginnings as an ancient tribal people to the opening of the New World in 1492 to the modern day.
Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s by Lori Majewski, Jonathan Bernstein
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The Current: Transmission’s “Mad World” New Wave Dance Hour
Mad World is a highly entertaining oral history that celebrates the New Wave music phenomenon of the 1980s via new interviews with 35 of the most notable artists of the period. Each chapter begins with a discussion of their most popular song, but leads to stories of their history and place in the scene, ultimately painting a vivid picture of this colorful, idiosyncratic time. Mixtape suggestions, fashion sidebars, and quotes from famous contemporary admirers help fill out the fun. Participants include members of Duran Duran, New Order, The Smiths, Tears for Fears, Adam Ant, Echo and the Bunnymen, Devo, ABC, Spandau Ballet, A Flock of Seagulls, Thompson Twins, and INXS.
Family Life: A Novel by Akhil sharma
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All Things Considered: After a Disaster in ‘Family Life,’ Relief Never Comes
The Diane Rehm Show: Akhil Sharma ‘Family Life’
"Outstanding…Every page is alive and surprising, proof of [Sharma’s] huge, unique talent."—David Sedaris
Heart-wrenching and darkly funny, Family Life is a universal story of a boy torn between duty and his own survival.
Over Easy by Mimi Pond
NPR: 'Over Easy' Serves Up Savory Memories Of A Vintage Diner
Over Easy is a brilliant portrayal of a familiar coming-of-age story. After being denied financial aid to cover her last year of art school, Margaret finds salvation from the straightlaced world of college and the earnestness of both hippies and punks in the wisecracking, fast-talking, drug-taking group she encounters at the Imperial Café, where she makes the transformation from Margaret to Madge. At first she mimics these new and exotic grown-up friends, trying on the guise of adulthood with some awkward but funny stumbles. Gradually she realizes that the adults she looks up to are a mess of contradictions, misplaced artistic ambitions, sexual confusion, dependencies, and addictions.
Over Easy is equal parts time capsule of late 1970s life in California—with its deadheads, punks, disco rollers, casual sex, and drug use—and bildungsroman of a young woman who grows from a naïve, sexually inexperienced art-school dropout into a self-aware, self-confident artist. Mimi Pond’s chatty, slyly observant anecdotes create a compelling portrait of a distinct moment in time. Over Easy is an immediate, limber, and precise semi-memoir narrated with an eye for the humor in every situation.
The Complete Peanuts 1950-1954 Box Set by Charles M. Schulz
NPR My Guilty Pleasure: Cursed With Mom Guilt? Charlie Brown Might Cure What Ails You
Fresh Air: Charles Schulz, ‘The Complete Peanuts’
Morning Edition: Letters From ‘Peanuts’ Creator Reveal Bittersweet Romance
Morning Edition: Schulz Sketched Own Life in ‘Peanuts’ Strip
Good grief! The Complete Peanuts is the most ambitious and most important project in the comics and cartooning genre: over a period of 12 years, Fantagraphics Books will release every daily and Sunday strip of Charles M. Schulz’s “Peanuts,” the best-known and best-loved series in the world.
Do to the Beast by Afghan Whigs
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The Current: Album Review: Afghan Whigs, ‘Do To The Beast’
The Current: Barb Abney’s 20th Afghan-Whigs-iversary
NPR First Listen: The Afghan Whigs, ‘Do To The Beast’
KCRW Presents: The Afghan Whigs
The Current: Afghan Whigs announce first new album in 16 years
Do to the Beast is the first new album by The Afghan Whigs in over a decade and a half. Founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1988, the band has long stood out from its peers, with their savage blend of hard rock, classic soul, and frontman Greg Dulli’s searing angst and obsessions. The new album is both a homecoming it marks their return to Sub Pop and a glimpse into the future of one of the most acclaimed bands of the past thirty years.
American Masters: Billie Jean King
American Masters: Billie Jean King looks back to the 12-year-old Long Beach, California, girl who played tennis on public courts, observed disparity and, as she soared athletically, never stopped trying to remedy inequality. During her professional tennis career, King won 39 Grand Slam titles, helped form the Virginia Slims Series (pre-cursor to WTA Tour), founded the Women s Sports Foundation and Women s Sports magazine, and co-founded World TeamTennis (WTT). Her competitiveness on the circuit was matched by her efforts on behalf of women and the LGBT community, and her commitment to prove there is strength in diversity.
In American Masters: Billie Jean King, King presents her own story with perspective from fellow tennis stars who played alongside her or were influenced by her, among them Margaret Court, Chris Evert, Ilana Kloss (King s partner), Maria Sharapova, Serena and Venus Williams, Caroline Wozniacki, and members of the Virginia Slims Circuit Original 9.
The Address: A Film by Ken Burns
At the tiny Greenwood School in the small New England town of Putney, Vermont, its roughly 50 students, boys from the ages of 11 to 17, are asked each year to memorize the Gettysburg Address. This would be a daunting assignment for any student, but the boys at Greenwood all suffer from learning differences that have made their personal, academic and social progress extremely challenging.
Embedding camera crews at the school for three months to chronicle the boys’ struggle to learn Abraham Lincoln’s immortal words and deliver them in a final public recitation, acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns has created a fascinating and inspiring documentary that shows them heroically confronting past failures and humiliations, ultimately opening the door to what Lincoln himself called “a new birth of freedom.”
Interweaving the history of this most famous of American speeches with the contemporary journey of the boys at Greenwood, The Address reveals the timeless resonance of Lincoln’s words, while culminating in the triumph of the human spirit.
The Trials of Muhammad Ali
The Trials of Muhammad Ali is not a conventional sports documentary. Befitting its extraordinary and complex subject, the film examines Ali’s life outside the ring, beginning with the announcement of his deeply held and controversial Islamic religious beliefs, and the decision to change his “white man’s name” of Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali. The film explores his refusal to serve in the Vietnam war, even after his status as a conscientious objector was denied, on the grounds of protesting racial injustice at home, while capturing his passion and anger in interviews and television appearances culled from a rich variety of rare archival sources.
Bach: St. Matthew Passion
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NPR’s Deceptive Cadence: A Visitor’s Guide To Bach’s ‘St. Matthew Passion’
The renowned St. Thomas Boys’ Choir of Leipzig, which boasts J.S. Bach as a former cantor, celebrates its 800th anniversary with an extraordinary interpretation of the peerless St. Matthew Passion. The Guardian praised the performance, noting that Bach’s harmonies “interwove with a transcendence that can only be achieved through living, eating, and working together.” This production is the only audio-visual release of the passion. It comes to life here, performed by the choir for which it was written, in the place where the composer worked and is buried.
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DCONSTRUCTED is a comprehensive compilation of classic and current music from the longstanding Disney catalog remixed by today’s hottest DJs/producers from across the globe. The 14-track high-end digipak features reworks of material from the multiple Academy Award-winning films THE LION KING and FROZEN, as well as two of Daft Punk’s contributions to TRON: Legacy.
EDM superstars Avicii, Armin Van Buuren and Kaskade are among the electronic dance music luminaries that have lent their formidable skills to these timeless favorites. The reworked material ranges from more recent heartwarmers from MONSTERS UNIVERSITY, THE INCREDIBLES, and THE MUPPETS to beloved and lasting sounds from the HAWAIIANNETTE album featuring the beloved Mickey Mouse Club darling, Annette Funicello, TOY STORY, SLEEPING BEAUTY, DUMBO, as well as music inspired by the original Mickey Mouse cartoons, and the enduring theme from the Disneyland Park’s Main Street Electrical Parade.
The blending of the orchestral world of Disney with the synthetic sounds of the electronic world brings out fresh flavors. The recognizable cries and roars of The Lion Kings ‘Circle Of Life’ mix headily with Mat Zo’s growling bass lines and razor-sharp synth stabs. Daft Punk’s abbreviated ‘Derezzed’ is freshened up with vocals courtesy of Negin and extended with Avicii’s twinkling rhythms. Similarly, the previously unreleased Japanese Popstars Remix of Daft Punk’s ‘Fall’ stretches out that track’s inquisitive beats with layers of echo. The newly minted Oscar-winner for Best Original Song ‘Let It Go,’ is transformed to a peak-of-the-night banger with Armin Van Buuren’s tranced out take on Idina Menzel’s sparkling vocals.
Says Van Buuren, ‘I feel incredibly honored to have remixed an Oscar-winning song though I didn’t know that yet when I started.’
'My first remix of Daft Punk's TRON: Legacy was so long ago, but it was a significant moment of recognition in my career,' says Avicii. 'It's great to be a part of it again, to refresh the track, and to let everyone hear Negin's voice.'
The makeovers of these universally appealing songs show off their renovations the most when the sounds from over half a century ago are brought to the present time. Stonebridge takes inspiration from the immutable Mickey Mouse cartoons for his new track, ‘Hey Pluto!’ which takes Mickey’s identifiable squeak and Pluto’s barks and uses them as sound effects for the trac’ s creeping shuffles. Snippets of SLEEPING BEAUTY’S carousel-like ‘Once Upon A Dream’ are interspersed through Trion’s tweaked out remix and much of Main Street Electrical Parade’s feel good vibe is maintained for the updated Extended Mix. Kaskade’s crafted approach to Dumbo’s sentimental ‘Baby Mine’ maintains the original’s emotions bringing those to the present time with softly rounded beats and gently building house rhythms.


Google Doodle celebrated the 197th birthday of Canadian-American abolitionist and suffragist Mary Ann Shadd Cary, who, among other accomplishments, is known as the first Black female newspaper editor in North America.
On this day in 1823, the woman we know of today as Mary Ann Shadd Cary was born in Wilmington, Delaware. Her parents, Abraham D. Shadd and Harriet Parnell, both being free African-Americans.
Mary Shadd’s family moved out of Delaware when the state’s law changed making it illegal to educate Black children. They left to their new home in Pennsylvania.Mary Ann Shadd attended a Quaker boarding school. Upon returning home from school, Mary Ann, still a teenager, used her education to found a school for Black children, the first of many schools she would teach.
Following the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required any captured slaves to be returned to their masters, Mary Ann and the whole Shadd family moved to Canada. From Canada, Mary Ann Shadd began a career of writing and publishing abolitionist pamphlets, which led to her founding The Provincial Freemen, a weekly newspaper written to be read by escaped slaves. For this, she is recognized as the first Black woman to be a newspaper publisher and editor across North America.
Today’s Google Doodle contributed by artist Michelle Theodore, honored Mary Ann Shadd Cary hard at work on The Provincial Freemen, with stacks of bundles of the newspaper serving to spell out most of the word “Google.”


Benefits of Reading Fiction
Novel that contain fiction stories have numerous advantages that have been forgotten due to the impact the technology has nowadays on people in the world. It is a sad thing that about 28 percent of 1000 people have not read any book in the past year despite the many benefits you can get from reading a book. There are many reasons why you can read a book. This is you should read a fiction book.
Reading a book is of benefit to you since the more one reads the more one is able to know. Books for different age groups help people to acquire new useful information. To improve on vocabularies, books are a rich in vocabularies which help students from kindergarten to college. They not only increase your reading test scores but increase your tests of intelligence.From the stories you are able to get qualities that are required to overcome difficulties. From the characters in the stories you are inspired to stand tall in times of difficulties and have a strong personality.
Reading within minutes gives you calming sensation. Research have also shown that stress levels can be reduced significantly through reading of a book. You are less prone to depression as a reader, sleeping which reenergizes the brain is improved contributing to you being healthy. When reading you lose yourself in an interesting piece of literature, for some minutes you escape your worries and stresses gotten through the day.
Furthermore, reading of books can improve how you relate to others You are able to read the emotions of people better through the different emotions in a book. To readers, reading helps them understand others’ mental conditions which is crucial in creating a complex social relationship which is ideal in society.
Another reason why you should consider reading fiction books is, they increase your options for entertainment.The author’s sense of imagination is able to draw your attention for some time engaging your thoughts. Reading is usually a deep pleasure giving hunt that makes you happy at the end of the story.
When you regularly read you grasp new knowledge and ideas that enhance your inspirations and imaginations. Therefore, fiction expands our imagination process to shape how we may discover new philosophies. Likewise, reading captures your brain and you become a part of the literature, this increase your level of attention. The different ideas by authors are able to be captured by a reader and increasing his creativity as well as the ability to involve the brain in lengthy activities.
Putting your brain at work through reading will reduce old related mental conditions.
Lastly, reading is an easy task that is usually a quick method to nourish your soul because for the most part, reading is a private recreational method.


You’ll find the Travel Phrasebook in the “directory” of language courses.
You can go to the "course directory" in one of two ways:
1. Go to the home screen of the ‘LEARN’ tab
and click the ‘Menu’ icon at the top left hand corner;
2. Go to the ‘ME’ tab and click on ‘Language learning’
Now you’re in the directory! Select your language, and choose ‘Travel Phrasebook’.
The Travel Phrasebook is a collection of words, phrases and sentences that you’ll find useful when you visit the country of your chosen language. It’s sorted by topic, and has everything from dating to useful words for emergency situations (not just travel – so don’t be misled by the name!) Each entry is read out to you by a native speaker, and you can repeat and record yourself for practice.
Entries that you’ve listened to become Flashcards in the ‘REVIEW’ tab so that it’s easy to do revision. You can also “star” your favorite entries for extra practice — they’ll appear in the ‘Favorite’ section of the ‘REVIEW’ tab


The 2016 Autumn series kicked off with the much anticipated movie The Price of Desire, which we were finally able to get from Munro Films. Many thanks to them for all their assistance.
The Price Of Desire is the controversial story of the bisexual Irish artist Eileen Gray and how her influential contribution to 20th century architecture and design was almost wiped from history by the egotistical ‘Father of Modernism’, Le Corbusier. The film unfolds how her relationship with philanderer Jean Badovici, editor of influential L’Architecture Vivante, and the man who made Le Corbusier famous, further fuelled the rift between the two architects, and consigned her legacy to a century of neglect and long-overdue recognition.
Set substantially on the Côte d’Azur in and around her most abiding work, the villa e1027, The Price of Desire explores the events surrounding Le Corbusier’s eventual erasure of both Gray’s physical ownership of the property, as well as her intellectual property right to be recognised as the architect of her work. A triangular tale of insidious chauvinism, The Price of Desire resonates as a universal female experience while cinematically evoking the essential aesthetic of Eileen Gray.
VILLA e1027: Eileen Gray designed and built this first-ever modernist house in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France in 1926 for her lover, the architectural journalist Jean Badovici. Le Corbusier, the architect he promoted, so effaced and defaced Gray’s moral right to be recognised as the author of her work that her legacy as one of the most influential inspirations of a century of modern architecture and design was consigned to oblivion for almost a century.
After the Second World War, Jean Badovici made some feeble efforts to request that Le Corbusier remove the vandalistic murals he had painted on its plain white walls, and even promised Eileen Gray that he would put the house back into her name. Le Corbusier was having none of it however, and sadly Jean Badovici died intestate, leaving the fate the ownership of the house to the whims of Le Corbusier, who in turn drowned on his daily swim in the Mediterranean below it. Eileen Gray survived them all and was finally made a fellow of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland in recognition of this work in 1995.
The film was very well received by those in attendance, and the discussion that followed was very lively. We shall be winding up the Autumn & 2016 Film Series with a screening of Koolhaas Houselife at 1900hrs on 22 November at the BFI.
We look forward to welcoming more of you to that screening, and many thanks to all who have attended our screenings this year!
Author: Christopher Musangi AIA


Exploring the Transformative Landscape of 20th Century Science And Technology
The 20th century was a period of profound advancements in science and technology, marking an era of unparalleled innovation and discovery. This century paved the way for unprecedented progress across various scientific disciplines, from the revolutionary theories of relativity and quantum mechanics to groundbreaking inventions like the computer and the Internet. This article delves into the transformative landscape of 20th-century science and technology, highlighting key breakthroughs and their enduring impact on our modern world.
Quantum Mechanics: Unlocking the Microscopic Realm
Quantum mechanics, formulated in the early 20th century, revolutionized our understanding of the microscopic world. Pioneered by physicists such as Max Planck, Albert Einstein, and Niels Bohr, this field introduced the concept of quantization and wave-particle duality. Quantum mechanics laid the foundation for modern physics, enabling the development of technologies like lasers, transistors, and atomic clocks, which are now integral to numerous scientific and practical applications.
Relativity Theory: A New Understanding of Space and Time
Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, introduced in the early 20th century, transformed our understanding of space, time, and gravity. The theory of special relativity challenged conventional notions of space and time, while general relativity provided a comprehensive framework for understanding gravity as the curvature of spacetime. These theories have had far-reaching consequences, from developing nuclear energy to validating GPS technology.
Atomic Theory: Unveiling the Building Blocks of Matter
The advent of atomic theory during the early 20th century laid the groundwork for modern chemistry and physics. Scientists such as Ernest Rutherford and Niels Bohr elucidated the structure of the atom and the behavior of its constituent particles. This understanding paved the way for the development of nuclear power and advancements in medical imaging, materials science, and the exploration of subatomic particles.
Information Theory: The Birth of the Digital Age
The concept of information theory, pioneered by Claude Shannon in the mid-20th century, revolutionized the field of telecommunications and laid the groundwork for the digital age. Shannon’s work on coding and data compression enabled the efficient transmission and storage of information, leading to the development of computers, digital communication networks, and the Internet, which have become indispensable aspects of our modern lives.
Medical Breakthroughs: Enhancing Health and Longevity
The 20th century witnessed remarkable medical science and technology advancements, leading to improved healthcare and increased life expectancy. 20th Century Science And Technology Milestones such as the discovery of antibiotics, the development of vaccines, and the advent of medical imaging techniques like X-rays and MRI have revolutionized disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Additionally, mapping the human genome opened new frontiers in personalized medicine and genetic research.
Space Exploration: Reaching for the Stars
Extraordinary achievements in space exploration marked the 20th century. From the first human-made satellite, Sputnik, to the iconic Apollo moon landings, these milestones expanded our understanding of the universe and propelled technological advancements on Earth. Space exploration also led to the development of satellite communication, weather forecasting, and global positioning systems (GPS), transforming various aspects of our daily lives.
The 20th century witnessed an extraordinary surge in scientific and technological advancements that continue to shape our world today. From the fundamental theories of relativity and quantum mechanics to the transformative fields of information theory and medical breakthroughs, the progress made during this century laid the foundation for our technological landscape.


This month thirteen:fourteen is all about new beginnings. So to inspire you, we have put together a list of our favourite books all about changing your life, to have by your side when your thinking about having your own fresh start.
Ikigai by Hector Garcia
“Ikigai translates as `a reason to live' or `a reason to jump out of bed in the morning'. It's the place where your needs, desires, ambitions, and satisfaction meet: a point of perfect balance, and perfect fulfilment.
On the Japanese island of Okinawa, people live longer than anywhere else in the world. There, finding your ikigai is considered the key to longevity - and to happiness. The Okinawans know that all lives are valuable; for them, your ikigai is the lens that will help bring your value into focus.”
This little book is packed with information on how to find or harness your own Ikigai and how to let it help transform your life. It’s slow and gentle pace doesn’t try to encourage you to change over night rather inspire you to seek out the best version of yourself that you can be. A beautiful and compact book that is perfect for fans of hygge.
Buy the book here
Windfall by Jennifer E Smith
“Alice doesn't believe in luck, Alice believes in love. Mostly that she's been in love with her best friend, Teddy, for the last three years. When she buys him a lottery ticket for his birthday and he wins 32 million dollars, they are thrown together with the world at their feet. Teddy decides that he will spend his money committing random acts of kindness, and who better to go on that adventure with him than Alice? In the process they get to know themselves and each other better than they ever have before, but money can't buy you love . . .”
Nothing would change your life more than winning the lottery, right? Well that’s what happens to Teddy and Alice in this sweet, fun and touching book. This book shows that even if your whole life and world change in the most dramatic ways possible, that you can still stay the same inside. Windfall will inspire you to be grateful for what you have and maybe buy a lottery ticket too.
Buy the book here
You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero
“In this refreshingly entertaining how-to guide, bestselling author and success coach, Jen Sincero, serves up 27 bitesized chapters full of hilariously inspiring stories, sage advice, easy exercises, and the occasional swear word, helping you to: Identify and change the self-sabotaging beliefs and behaviours that stop you from getting what you want. Create a life you totally love. And create it NOW. Make some damn money already. The kind you've never made before. By the end of You Are a Badass, you'll understand why you are how you are, how to love what you can't change, how to change what you don't love, and how to use The Force to kick some serious ass.”
If you don’t already own this book you probably know at least four people that do. It’s a book that has been passed around and shared more than any other in the last few years and it’s because it is really great. Jen has such a straight talking no nonsense approach to life that can’t help but make you feel fired up. She is kind and funny with her words and stories yet bold enough with her advice that she’ll make you want to take notes. Believe the hype, you are a badass is inspiring.
Buy this book here
This is where I leave you by Jonathan Trooper
“Poor Judd Foxman returns home early to find his wife in bed with his boss - in the act. He now faces the twin threats of both divorce and unemployment. His misery is compounded further with the sudden death of his father. He is then asked to come and 'sit Shiva' for his newly deceased parent with his angry, screwed-up and somewhat estranged brothers and sisters in his childhood home. It is there he must confront who he really is and - more importantly - who he can become.”
Jonathan trooper writes with so much dark wit that you can sometimes forget that your reading about such a somber subject matter. Judd’s life is a mess and coming home to spend time with his family is exactly what he doesn’t need. We follow his journey back to happiness in the book and see that no matter what obstacle is put before you there is nearly always a way to get by it and Judd shows us there is normally a way to see the funny side of the darkness too. This funny, sad, uplifting and heartwarming book is a must read.
Buy this book here


Sheep River Ramblers Hiking Club
Sheep River Ramblers Hiking Club (SRRHC) is an all-year-round hiking club in the beautiful Alberta Foothills. We also walk, snowshoe and cross-country ski in winter.
With early roots in late 2012, this is a very active and fun initiative that has been going strong and growing exponentially 11 years later, in 2023.
Until recently, SRRHC was part of the Sheep River Library; as of August 1, 2023, it is no longer associated with the Library and is now its own independent entity.


Art21 Gives Viewers Rare Inside Look at Kentridge’s Work and Goes Backstage at NYC’s Metropolitan Opera as He Prepares Shostakovich’s “The Nose”
(New York, NY) August 2010 — Art21, the highly acclaimed contemporary art and education organization and Peabody Award-winning producer of Art in the Twenty-First Century, presents a new hour-long film on the life and work of the South African artist William Kentridge. The film, WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, will premiere on PBS on October 21, 10pm EST (check local listings). Scenesbydean.com concept artist Sydney are energetic, driven, and creative. They will have the opportunity to contribute to the projects well beyond the bounds of great looking concept art.
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE is the first Art21 film devoted to a single artist. The documentary provides a rare, intimate look at the creative process, political and artistic philosophies, and personal background of one of the most provocative and dynamic artists working today. Kentridge’s work, which includes drawings, sculpture, animated films, tapestries, live performance, theater and, most recently, a production of the Shostakovich opera The Nose, has received worldwide recognition and accolades. Time magazine named his Five Themes exhibition (documented in this film and currently traveling internationally) as one of the top ten art exhibitions of 2009. In June, he was selected as the winner of the 2010 Kyoto Prize, a prestigious Japanese award that recognizes visionaries in the arts and sciences.
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE features exclusive interviews with Kentridge, following him in his studio and around the world as he describes his work, techniques, and his upbringing in South Africa. The son of prominent anti-apartheid lawyers, Kentridge discusses the impact of growing up in a household where there was “an incandescent rage” against accepted social and political inequities. His personal experience is translated into a universal one as he draws upon stories ranging from the Enlightenment to 20th-century colonial wars, from Russian modernism to contemporary South Africa to examine themes of a divided world, a divided self, and the ways in which we create illusions of coherence despite the many contradictions in our lives and societies.
The film also features extensive behind-the-scenes footage at the Metropolitan Opera as Kentridge prepares, stages, and directs the opera The Nose for its March 2010 premiere. The Nose, written by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1928, is based on a satirical short story written by Nikolai Gogol in 1836 about a government official in St. Petersburg who wakes up one morning to discover his nose has left him and secured a government position higher than his own. WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE follows Kentridge backstage at the Met at work with collaborators—including singers Paulo Szot and conductor Valery Gergiev—and shows the construction of the elaborate set pieces, costumes, and projected images created by Kentridge and his team. In 2011, The Nose will be performed in France at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.
Susan Sollins, Art21 Executive Director and Director of WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, explains, “The profound manner in which William Kentridge simultaneously combines many different facets of contemporary art in his work—drawing, sculpture, music, film—while reflecting on a rich variety of ideas—from historical cataclysms to political events of our time, including the fall of apartheid in South Africa—provides us with a vehicle to explore fully the power of art and its ability to help us understand the world today.” The film is co-directed by Charles Atlas, award-winning artist and filmmaker who has worked extensively with contemporary artists and dancers, including Merce Cunningham, Marina Abramovi´c, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Antony and the Johnsons.
In conjunction with the broadcast, Art21, which has won a George Foster Peabody Award, a Gold HUGO award from the Chicago International Television competition and has been nominated for an Emmy award for Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century, will also partner with its national network of teachers to integrate WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE into their classrooms and to create teaching materials around the film. Art21 is also working with its extensive group of institutional partners—museums, galleries, and cultural organizations—to hold free public screenings across the country.
In WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, Kentridge recounts his struggles as a young man to find his place in the world, and his voice as an artist. It wasn’t until he was in his 30s, after working as a production designer in commercial film, that he began making a series of animated films using a technique that would gain him international recognition. On a single sheet of paper, he draws, erases, redraws, and adds to an image, photographing each step of the process so that every erasure and smudge is recorded along the way. The effect, shown in a clip of one of his early films, Sobriety, Obesity & Growing Old (1991), is that every movement leaves behind faded, ghostly marks. Using no scripts or storyboards, the films tell stories of oppression and uprising, political movements, and poignant personal moments. Furthermore, the technique highlights the centrality of drawing for Kentridge and demonstrates the importance of improvisation, inquiry, play, and open-ended possibilities in his process.
Kentridge’s work is also characterized by investigations of perception—both sensory and cognitive. Through the use of projections, stereoscopes, and explorations of early cinema and photography, Kentridge provokes viewers to become conscious of the very processes through which we see and make sense of an often chaotic world.
When approached by the Metropolitan Opera to stage an opera, Kentridge explains how The Nose was his first choice. Gogol’s story, which comments on the absurd nature of a highly bureaucratic government state and the “terrors of hierarchy,” resonated with Kentridge. WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE reveals how this latest project—and the various “satellite projects” the artist created around The Nose—brings together so many themes and processes running throughout his work.
In addition to the film, an Art21 website will extend the experience of the film by providing additional Art21-produced videos about William Kentridge and his collaborators, background on the film and artist, educational resources, and other exclusive material related to Kentridge’s work. For more information, visit art21.org/anythingispossible.
WILLIAM KENTRIDGE: ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE was produced for PBS and international distribution by the non-profit contemporary art organization Art21, Inc. Executive Producer and Director: Susan Sollins; Director: Charles Atlas; Co-Producer: Eve Moros Ortega; Editors: Mark Sutton and Mary Ann Toman.
Major support for William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible and its accompanying education programs has been provided by: the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation; Agnes Gund; the Brenda R. Potter and Michael C. Sandler Charitable Foundation; The Broad Art Foundation; the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation; Toby Devan Lewis; the National Endowment for the Arts; Marian Goodman Gallery; Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg; Barbara and Andrew Gundlach; Lew and Susan Manilow; Thomas A. and Georgina T. Russo; Nina and Michael Sundell; Nina and Michael Zilkha; and individual contributions to Art21.
Over the past decade, Art21 has established itself as the preeminent chronicler of contemporary art and artists through its Peabody Award-winning biennial television series Art in the Twenty-First Century. The organization has used the power of digital media to expose millions of people of all ages to contemporary art and artists and has created a new paradigm for teaching and learning about the creative process.
In addition to its PBS series and year-round series-based education and public programs efforts, Art21 has expanded its film production and educational efforts in recent years. Current initiatives include the new short-format documentary series Exclusive on multiple online platforms, an expansion of the Art21 Blog and Art21 Educators, an ongoing professional development program for teachers. Art21 also maintains an extensive archive of all of the films and educational materials it produces. The core of the Art21 Archive is the original documentary footage amassed to date in the creation of 20 one-hour programs (five seasons) of Art in the Twenty-First Century in addition to video documentation of art installations, temporary exhibitions, and performances at galleries and museums worldwide. The archive also includes films of ongoing activities of artists featured in the series of its education and public programs, including hundreds of hours of video filmed by educators participating in its Art21 Educators institute. The video in the Art21 Archive is supplemented with transcribed interviews, research materials, educational publications, web pages, books, and digital and analog artwork reproductions.


Reminiscences of Coventry Congregational Church|
By Lottie M. Thayer
Written for the observance of the 155th Anniversary - May 1965
My memories of this, the Congregational Church of Coventry, go back to early childhood, probably
I was three or four years old, at the time I can first remember coming here.
We were living on the farm, now owned by Clyde Barlow. I don't remember much about the church service or Sunday School, but do remember the long cold ride over the hills in the winter with a horse and sleigh. Though why I should remember that so well, I don't know, but I do.
When I was about five years old our family moved to Waterbury where we lived for two years, coming back to Coventry in November 1904. I was seven years old then and from that time until my husband and I and two youngest sons went to Springfield, in 1943, I attended this church continually.
I was 13 years old when I became a member of the church. There had been evangelistic services in the Methodist Church, now the Grange Hall, across the street. Some of our family attended each night and during the time these services were being held, my sister Eva and I, each on a different night declared our intention of becoming a Christian. Having been brought up in a strict Christian home we knew the requirements for becoming a Christian and living a Christian life. We united with the church in February 1911. Rev. M.W.Hale was pastor at that time.
Many of the families who were living then and were hard workers in the church, come to mind as I write this; Mrs. Mary Cleveland, Mrs. Ellen Ware, who was choir leader and her daughters Mabel Ware and Josephine Brooks, the Bryants and Websters, Ralph and Lucy Ware, the Hitchcocks, the Gorhams, Ida Morrill Orne, also the Lee Porters, Boyntons, Homer Ide Niles, and my own father and mother Will and Vinnie Elliot. Mr. and Mrs. Niles were always in church morning and evening. They were zealous workers and wanted others to be. After Mr. Niles' health failed so he was unable to attend services Mrs. Niles wrote or took notes of the sermons to read to Mr. Niles at home. Mrs. Niles taught a Sunday School class almost continually for years, beginning when she was quite young. I never did know how long she taught but it must have been over 50 years. I was in her class when quite young and she taught a class of children and later two of my sons were in her Sunday School also. She was teaching a class of elderly women up until the time of the tragic accident she suffered one winter's night when she was fixing her wood fire for the night and her clothing caught fire and she was so severely burned she died about three weeks later. Her funeral service was held on a Sunday morning in place of the regular morning service.. The church was well filled and many who attended had been in one of her Sunday School classes at one time or another.
Of the ministers we had who served the parish I think Mr. Bole and Mr. Hale stand out the most clearly in my mind though I remember them all. I think Mr. Bole has stayed in my mind because he came to our home on two different occasions when friendship and spiritual help was needed, also, perhaps because he had children attending school here in the village when Eva and I attended school here.
While Mr. Hale was here, as our minister he held cottage prayer meetings, in the homes, during the winters. Friends and neighbors attended. Usually the meetings were on Friday nights, as I remember them. How we looked forward to the night of the meeting. He conducted a prayer meeting with a lot of singing of old hymns, a hymn sing, I believe it is called now. After the service of prayer and testimonies we would linger and visit with our friends and neighbors. In those days we often did not see a neighbor from one week's end to the other as everyone was busy and there wasn't a phone in every house then, so we couldn't even visit with them by phone as we do now.
Mr. Claris came after Mr. Hale. He officiated at Harry's and my wedding. I believe it was the first wedding at which he did officiate after he came here.
Another person I recall was Abbie Harvey who served for a long time as church librarian. There was no public library here then but we had a church library with books for all ages. How eagerly we used to look forward to Sunday, so we could get fresh books to read. Abbie would go to each class during the Sunday School hour and collect the books we'd brought back and bring us books for the week. They were good wholesome stories too.
Then there was the "horse shed conferences" held after Sunday School. At that time there was a row of horse sheds, church property, I believe, between the now Maxwell and Desbiens property. The men would go out to unhitch the horses to drive home but usually got side tracked and would stand and talk for an indefinite time, while the women and children were waiting in the vestry and getting hungrier by the minute, but we had to wait until the men had discussed matters to their own satisfaction. Church service was at 11 A.M. and Sunday School at 12 noon, so it was 1 P.M. before we were ready to go home.
A few amusing incidents stand out in my mind, a few of which I shall relate such as the time my sister Iola sat on the Minister's derby hat which was parked on a settee in the vestibule. She wanted to sit down to put on her overshoes so she sat on the nearest place available. Several ladies of the church were quite shocked.
A maiden lady who had lived here when she was young, by the name of Elvina Daggett, used to come summers for a few weeks visit. She always spoke to the children and young people when she first arrived and we would all grow and change so from year to year she wouldn't recognize us but would say "How do you do? This is ___ let me see ___ Oh, yes I know you are ___ you are ___" Not being able to name us and we youngsters could hardly keep from laughing out right, but she never wanted us to tell her our names. Another thing that amused us, too, she wore the long full skirts and dresses of a bygone period, with a pocket in her petticoat and how we would snicker to see her calmly raise her skirt in church and Sunday School and fish out her purse which she carried in the pocket. I imagine children of today would be as amused as we were to see that happen.
I can't close this without mentioning the friends, neighbors, schoolmates and several of my own loved ones I have seen carried from this church to their last resting places on the hillside. We miss them but know they are safe in their Eternal Home.
- Bits And Pieces Of Coventry's History, Coventry Bicentenial Committee, Coventry, VT, 1977


Have you ever struggled to retain information that you’ve written down? Maybe you’ve heard about how drawing your notes can enhance your learning while having fun. There is a solution, and it’s called Sketchnoting!
Grow your creativity and sharpen your listening and critical thinking skills while you learn how to:
- Say “No thanks” to your inner critic and let yourself play
- Assemble your sketchnoting toolkit with items you already have
- Write more clearly, and actually like your handwriting
- Make your notes easier to understand with simple lines and shapes
- Enhance your notes with 15 easy-to-draw icons
- Create impactful people, even if you “can only draw stick figures”
- Use the page creatively and avoid running out of room
- Stay focused and retain more information
- Figure out what to write down and what to skip
- Maximize your learning and develop your skills quickly and easily
A Beginner’s Guide to Sketchnoting makes notetaking fun and effective, no matter what you’re learning!
You Don’t Need to be an Artist to Draw Your Notes!
Packed with useful information, encouraging advice, delightful illustrations, and enticing exercises, this step-by-step guide shows notetakers like you how to reclaim your creativity and draw your notes (even if you have no artistic skills).
Studies have shown that learners retain more information more quickly when they use visuals as well as words. And they don’t have to be good at drawing for it to work!
If you’re looking for ways to inject fun into your classes, lectures, or meetings, while staying focused longer and remembering more, this book is for you!
Learn The Sketchnoting Process as Well as All the Parts of a Sketchnote
Lots of books teach you sketchnote components, but A Beginner’s Guide to Sketchnoting also breaks down HOW to put the pieces together, along with tips and tricks gained from over a decade of sketchnoting experience.
From collecting your materials to putting on the finishing touches, this guidebook covers all the sketchnoting bases (and some fun extras!). And it does it in a casual, encouraging style that emphasizes play, exploration, and freedom from self-judgment.