Page 2 - news2018_07

Greetings from
the Head Librarian
As I write this, on a warm day herald-
ing the arrival of summer, most of you
are probably making vacation plans and
looking forward to longer days and a
slower pace. Here at the Library, we may
be winding down our seasonal program-
ming, but we’re keeping busy booking
an exciting new fall lineup packed with
lectures and panel discussions, semi-
nars, writing workshops, and special
events, and testing a new online events
registration system that we hope you’ll
find much more user-friendly and intui-
tive. We will be looking for member
volunteers to assist with event setup and
break-down in the fall, so if interested,
please email us at events@nysoclib.org.
Summer is also the season for special
projects, like shifting books and re-
arranging the stacks to make room for
the nearly 4,000 books we buy each year
and undertaking rigorous shelf reading
to keep our 300,000 volumes in order.
Moreover, it also provides an opportu-
nity for us to focus on larger building
projects, and this year is no exception.
You’ll be hearing more soon about
preparations for a critical upgrade of
our fire alarm system.
Weekday tea times, monthly happy
hours, Prompt! and Creation Station
will continue through the summer
months, and we’re adding a few infor-
mal get-togethers for members who’d
like to meet others interested in joining
a book club. So sign up for our monthly
e-newsletter to keep on top of the latest
Library news—and stop by to cool off
and say hello!
Happy summer! Happy reading!
Carolyn Waters
Head Librarian
Willa Cather’s Red Cloud: A Trip Back in Time continued New Trustee
The center of the town, founded by Silas Garber in 1871, appears not to have Visits to the train depot (5)(6) and the home of the Miner family (on whom the
changed a great deal. The building where Cather assisted the local doctor up- Harling family in My Ántonia is based) follow, as does an increased feeling of
stairs and worked at the pharmacy downstairs still stands, as does the bank and immersion in Willa Cather’s world. The depot is where many of her arrivals
its interior, founded by Mr. Garber, on whom A Lost Lady’s Daniel Forrester was and departures would have taken place, and it represented her connection to
based. The beautiful and newly opened center for the Willa Cather Foundation the outside world. An old poster originally from Ellis Island, designed to encour-
is behind the largest number of facades on Webster Street (7), and they offer a age immigration to Nebraska, hangs in the depot. The illustration shows small
wonderful tour of the historical buildings that were part of Willa Cather’s world. homes dotting the plains, and visitors are told that many people coming to
Nebraska expected to find homes on the land grants, and turned around and
The first stop on the tour is the home the Cather family rented for twenty years. left when they found only prairie grasses.
Interesting details abound, like the fact that Mrs. Cather packed her china
in Confederate money for the move from Virginia to Nebraska, and that Mr. Highlights in the surrounding countryside are the Willa Cather Memorial
Cather brought home paying guests for meals from his business in town for Prairie (4)(8) and the Pavelka farm house (3). Anna Sadilek, who inspired
extra income. One of the most surprising was the reason that young Willa’s attic My Ántonia, married John Pavelka and raised nine children. In the book, the
bedroom (1), with its original floral wallpaper (2) (taken as part of her pay from narrator, Jim Burden, goes home to visit his childhood friend Ántonia after
the pharmacy store) survived untouched: when the home was divided into two twenty years. He travels out to her family’s farmhouse, and during their happy
apartments, the stairway to the attic was closed off, resulting in this unintended reunion, her children proudly show him the new cellar out behind the house.
but fortunate preservation. Today, off a dirt road, the house is there, the cellar is there, and when one pulls
open the unlocked cellar doors, a feeling of stepping back in time is there as well.
The Library is pleased to announce that
Liaquat Ahamed was elected to the
Board of Trustees in April.
A graduate of Harvard and Cambridge
Universities, Mr. Ahamed has had a
distinguished career in finance, working
with the World Bank and, more recently,
with Fischer Francis Trees & Watts, Inc.
as CIO and CEO.
His book Lords of Finance: The Bank-
ers Who Broke the World, published by
Penguin Press in 2009, won the 2010
Pulitzer Prize for History along with
1 2 5 6 numerous other honors. The book
narrates the events preceding 1929’s
Black Tuesday stock market crash and
the disastrous response of the world’s
central banks. Time magazine called it
“the rich and charming story of the end
of the world.” Mr. Ahamed’s articles and
book reviews appear in many periodi-
cals including the New York Times, the
Wall Street Journal, the Washington
Post, and the Financial Times.
A Library member since 1999, Mr.
Ahamed divides his time between
Washington, D.C. and New York. When
he’s in the city, he uses the Hornblower
Room to do his writing.
3 4 7 8
PAGE 2 - Summer 2018 Books & People Books & People Summer 2018 - PAGE 3