The 2021 READ event has been cancelled
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Brenham Lifetime Learning is saddened to announce that Lisa Wingate, author for the 2021 Washington County READ, has cancelled her presentation with us due to Covid concerns. We understand that Wingate’s The Book of Lost Friends was extremely popular and that many were looking forward to meeting her.
Lifetime Learning is always excited to offer our reception, author presentation, and dramatic reading free to the community. We regret that Wingate’s cancellation has forced us to call off this year’s event scheduled for October 26th at Unity Theatre. The Book of Lost Friends is a captivating historical novel and we encourage all to read it. Then visit the Friends' database and read letters from the formerly enslaved from the Brenham area. (Link opens in a new tab) |
13th Annual
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As our community begins to emerge from the pandemic, Brenham Lifetime Learning is proud to announce The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate for the 2021 Washington County READ.
During the past year when many in our community have lost loved ones to the coronavirus and many more separated far too long from friends and family, the importance of connection to loved ones stands out. The Book of Lost Friends, set during Reconstruction, introduces the reader to Hannie Gossett, a formerly enslaved woman, as she searches for family brutally taken from her during slavery. Wingate’s novel alternates chapters centering on Hannie in 1875 and the story of Bennie Silva in 1987, a new school teacher in Augustine, Louisiana, struggling to engage her bored, underperforming students. When Bennie stumbles upon a slave cemetery on the edge of an old plantation manor house, she awakens her students’ imaginations to delve into the history, mystery, and lives buried there. Anticipating the merging of these two story lines, the reader remains captivated until Wingate finally reveals their connection. Lisa Wingate was inspired by actual letters seeking news of lost loved ones published by the Southwestern Christian Advocate newspaper across the South. With her highly readable prose and evocative imagery, Wingate enlightens us about this little known, but historically important event. When fall returns, Brenham Lifetime Learning will once again host our reception, author presentation, and dramatic reading. Mark your calendars for October 26th at Unity Theatre as we celebrate a summer of reading The Book of Lost Friends and welcome author Lisa Wingate to our community. |
The Historical New Orleans Collection
Though the story in The Book of Lost Friends is fictional, Lisa Wingate based her novel on historical facts. From 1879 to 1896, the Southwestern Christian Advocate newspaper published messages as advertisements from formerly enslaved persons searching for reunion with loved ones lost to slavery. The Advocate’s 4,000 subscribers spanned Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. In addition, the newspaper shared these notices with 500 churches across the South for preachers to read from their pulpits and 800 hundred post offices to place on lobby bulletin boards.
Thankfully, the original newspapers with Lost Friends notices have been preserved at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The Historical New Orleans Collection has made photocopies available on a searchable online database. Explore it for letters from Brenham—there are 25! Letters can also be found from Bryan, Bellville, Hempstead, Industry, and Berlin. The names of loved ones are listed, as well as the last known place lived, former owner, and circumstances surrounding their disappearance.
Search the Collection's database of letters. (Link opens in a new tab)
Thankfully, the original newspapers with Lost Friends notices have been preserved at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The Historical New Orleans Collection has made photocopies available on a searchable online database. Explore it for letters from Brenham—there are 25! Letters can also be found from Bryan, Bellville, Hempstead, Industry, and Berlin. The names of loved ones are listed, as well as the last known place lived, former owner, and circumstances surrounding their disappearance.
Search the Collection's database of letters. (Link opens in a new tab)
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The Author
Lisa Wingate is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Before We Were Yours, which remained on the NYT Bestseller List Hardcover and softcover lists for 110 weeks and has sold more than three million copies. She has penned over thirty novels and coauthored a nonfiction book, Before and After with Judy Christie. Her April 2020 novel, The Book Of Lost Friends, became an instant New York Times Bestseller. The story follows an unlikely trio of girls coming of age as they embark on a perilous journey through reconstruction Louisiana and Texas… and a modern-day teacher in small-town Louisiana who rediscovers their story. The Book Of Lost Friends was inspired by the real-life “Lost Friends” ads, through which families separated during slavery sought to find their lost loved ones in the chaos following the Civil War. A reader and museum volunteer from the Historic New Orleans Collection connected Lisa with HNOC’s vast database of over 2500 Lost Friends ads, which chronicle the heart wrenching and hope-filled searches of separated families, and which inspired the story of eighteen-year-old Hannie Gossett in the novel.
Lisa lives with her husband in North Texas. More information about her novels can be found at www.lisawingate.com.
Lisa lives with her husband in North Texas. More information about her novels can be found at www.lisawingate.com.
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Previous Community Reads:
2020: Getting Life by Michael Morton 2019: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer 2018: The Train to Crystal City by Jan Jarboe Russell 2017: News of the World by Paulette Jiles 2016: City of Refuge by Tom Piazza 2015: My Boys and Girls Are in There by Ron Rozelle 2014: One Amazing Thing by Chitra Divakaruni 2013: The Personal History of Rachel Dupree by Ann Weisgarber 2012: The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton 2011: One Ranger: A Memoir by H. Joaquin Jackson and David Marion Wilkinson 2010: Twelve Mighty Orphans by Jim Dent 2009: Final Salute by Jim Sheeler |