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Summer Author Series
August 8 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
$5
Wornall/Majors’ popular book club is going in person! From historic fiction to newly illuminated true stories, there is a book for every reader this summer. Join us three times this summer to hear from authors Gail Blankenau, D.L. Rogers, and Adrian Zink in the Alexander Majors House Museum Barn. Each event will feature a talk from an author, Q&A, and opportunities for the audience to ask questions. Feel free to read the book in advance or come as a fresh slate.
Tickets: $5 / free for WMHM Members
Register here: https://www.simpletix.com/e/summer-author-series-tickets-173957
July 11 at 7pm
Gail Blankenau
Uncovering the Grayson Sisters’ Escape from Nebraska Territory
Book description: In late November of 1858 two enslaved Black women—Celia Grayson, age twenty-two, and Eliza Grayson, age twenty—escaped the Stephen F. Nuckolls household in southeastern Nebraska. John Williamson, a man of African American and Cherokee descent from Iowa, guided them through the dark to the Missouri River, where they boarded a skiff and crossed the icy waters, heading for their first stop on the Underground Railroad at Civil Bend, Iowa.
August 8 at 7pm
D.L. Rogers
Elizabeth’s War: Missouri 1863 and Elizabeth’s War: Aftermath
Book description: In a time when raiders, bushwhackers, and Redlegs rode the Cass County, Missouri, countryside bringing fear and destruction with them, Elizabeth Miers and her family barely survived into the next day. When the enemy, in the form of Elizabeth’s neighbors, comes a-calling more than once with mischief on their minds, Elizabeth fights back to keep her children safe against men she once called friends.
September 12 at 7pm
Adrian Zink
Hidden History of Kansas
Book description: Kansas’ storied past is filled with fascinating firsts, humorous coincidences and intriguing characters. A man who had survived a murderous proslavery massacre in 1858 hanged his would-be executioner five years later. A wealthy Frenchman utilized his utopian ideals to create an award-winning silk-producing commune in Franklin County. A young boy’s amputated arm led to the rise of Sprint Corporation. The first victim of the doomed Donner Party met her end in Kansas. In 1947, a housewife in Johnson County, indignant at the poor condition of the local school for black children, sparked school desegregation nationwide. Author and historian Adrian Zink digs deep into the Sunflower State’s history to reveal these hidden and overlooked stories
Wornall/Majors House Museums is sponsoring this program in partnership with the Missouri Humanities Council and with support from the Missouri Humanities Trust Fund.