Book Signing Affair in Sewickley
Book Signing Affair: Sept. 21, 2008
Images of America: African Americans in Sewickley Valley
Attended by bonita lee penn
Welcome to the home of Susan and Greg Kaminski nestled in the historic town of Sewickley, a small quiet place along the Ohio River. A place where in the 1800’s the wealthy families living on Pittsburgh’s Old Allegheny millionaires’ row built their summer homes. Beautiful sprawling summer homes that were well kept by African-American female domestics while their husbands worked construction in the developing valley area. This is Sewickley an area deep with history contributed by the wealthy and the working class of all ethnic backgrounds who built a town and a community. It was a lovely summer afternoon in Sewickley, as my mother, Marlene Lee, and I made our way up the concrete path to the lovely Victorian red brick home of Susan and Greg Kaminski. They were our hosts for the afternoon’s book signing affair promoting the historical pictorial book by Bettie Cole and Autumn Redcross. Susan and Greg moved to Sewickley more than eight years ago and Susan being a community activist became involved in a variety of community organizations. She is presently the President of Child Health of Sewickley, a historic organization in itself which was established in 1923 to provide fresh milk to undernourished Sewickley school children. Since then the organization have allocated over $3.3 million for children’s programs and services throughout Western Pennsylvania.
This afternoon Susan has taken a break from her busy schedule to play hosts to the numerous ladies and gentlemen who arrived at her home taking the opportunity to meet and talk to the authors and discuss the people and families in the book and their connection to their own memories of growing up in Sewickley. I had the chance to pull Susan aside from her hosting duties and I asked her what inspired her to hold this book signing party at her home. She shared with me the story of how Autumn and her both are active volunteers through a community outreach program, Youth Connect, a youth orientated organization that provides culturally enriching programs for local students. This is where Susan noticed during free time Autumn would be hard at work with a layer of photographs on her desk. She asked her about the project and Autumn explained to her the collaboration between Ms. Bettie Cole and herself to bring to life the contributions of the local African-Americans who were part of Sewickley’s history. Being a transplant Susan also became interested in the history of Sewickley and wanted to share this with her friends and make other aware of the book, thus hosting the book signing affair.
Beverly Blair an educator whose family was among some of the first African-American pioneers in the Sewickley Valley said the book, “Is brilliant, it doesn’t tell you, it shows you.”
Listen to Wade’s comments:
If you haven’t already, pick up the book and learn something about our history.
Filed under: General
