Projects

Right Much of a Muchness

The Life and Times of the Irrepressible Margie Story Haywood

Unflinchingly loyal. Doggedly persistent. Endlessly devoted to family. Margie Story Haywood began her remarkable life in the midst of the Dustbowl in Oklahoma. As a young girl, she was sent—by herself—from Tulsa to Raleigh, to live in a town she had never seen, with an aunt and uncle she had never met. Margie made a new life in North Carolina’s capital city—the city she came to call home, making life-long friends and establishing her reputation for her singular self-reliance. Margie’s story is one of overcoming challenges, dealing with grief, finding solace in the simple things life has to offer, and sharing her passion for history. She often pointed to times when her life was a right much of a muchness, but she always found a way to keep on keeping on. Most of all, Margie Story Haywood’s story is about a woman with an irrepressible zest for life.

Wood Meets Leather

The Ancestral Journal of the Wicks-Gerber Family

by Dick Wicks

Dick Wicks invites readers to join him on a journey as he explores the ancestral roots of the Wicks-Gerber family. Startingwith his most recent common ancestors of many millennia ago, he then traces his family lines — Wicks, Grotzinger, Gerber,Frank, and more — through 400 years, from Germany and England to the United States. Along the way, he shares the stories of:

• The adventurers who risked everything to come to the New World in the early 17th century, becoming some of this country’s first residents.
• The young man who traveled with Roger Williams when he established Providence, Rhode Island.
• The ancestor who was also a forefather of an American president.
• The New England settler who supported the first free school in the nation.
• The family who was connected to a leather tanning empire.
• The intrepid immigrant who died while setting an explosion to build a road.
• The forefathers who sought religious freedom to be safe from persecution.
• The ancestors who played a role in establishing communities like Cambridge, Massachusetts; Southhold, New York; Norwalk, Connecticut; Liberty, New York; and St. Marys, Pennsylvania.

Grimley / Jones / Conrad family history project

This multi-year, multi-facted project included organizing and documenting existing genealogy research, developing timelines for more than 100 ancestors, and conducting original research and interpreting historical documents. Throughout the project, we maintained digital files and a genealogy database, conducted oral history interviews for family history knowledge, and preserved personal history stories. Artifact care and documentation was also part of the project, including developing inventories, detailing provenance and recording artifact histories. One focus was a 19th century sea captain, and the project included a narrative draft. Our historians assisted in identifying permanent repositories for both paper and artifact collections and facilitated donations.

Lisiecki-Pustz Family Photo Album

by Victoria Lisiecki Pustz

For more than 30 years, Polish immigrant Victoria (Vicky) Lisiecki Pustz collected snapshots and photographs of her loved ones and assembled them in a family album. It chronicled the lives of not only her parents and siblings but also her husband and her children. With images from the 1920s to the late 1950s, it provides a glimpse of life during some of our country’smost turbulent times—the Great Depression and World War II. It also shows how a multi-generational family straddles both country life in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and city life in the Chicago area. More importantly though, it chronicles the special moments of her life and her family—weddings, babies, sending men off to war, graduations, and the celebrations of simply enjoying time spent together.

The Great Society

Ladies Aid Society of St. Joseph AME Church, Vol. 2

The second edition of a history of the Ladies Aid Society of one of Durham’s most historic churches. Through oral history interviews, tributes to past and present leaders, and member bios, this book honors the contributions of the Ladies Aid Society and the women who spearheaded its efforts. The book is available on the bookstore through blurb.com. A digital exhibit was also created to accompany the original publication.

DP

My Journey as a Displaced Person

by Anna Glowacki Muñoz

This poignant and moving memoir takes readers on a journey of loss, danger, fear and survival. Anna Glowacki Muñoz’s story begins in war-torn Poland in 1938. As the war brought violence and death to so many innocent people, she and her family had their own narrow escape. Others survived thanks to the bravery of individuals like her father who took great risks to help many of the most vulnerable. Anna and her father withstood the chaos and danger because of careful planning as well as chance and good fortune. As one war closed,another threat loomed. Anna and her father fled Poland in 1948 as the Iron Curtain began to fall, escaping before they were swallowed up by a new upheaval. As a young immigrant in the U.S., she faced the prejudice and heard the taunts of children who used the epithet of DP—or Displaced Person—when they pointed at the foreigner in their midst. Anna didn’t feel like a refugee, but she didn’t have a permanent home either.

Keith Amos

A Celebration of his Life

Keith Amos made his mark wherever he went. Growing up in small town Minden, LA, he was known as the smart kid who had gifts and talents to make something special of himself. As a student at Xavier University in New Orleans, teachers and fellow students recognized that Keith was going to be going places. At Harvard Med School, his growing talent as a physician was starting to blossom. His skilled precision as a surgeon grew exponentially when he was a resident as Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Washington University Med School in St. Louis. His natural ability to connect with patients came into full fruition during his surgical oncology fellowship at MD Anderson in Houston. His innate passion for advocacy and teaching combined with his other natural talents at the Lineberger Cancer Center at UNC-Chapel Hill to make Keith the ideal doctor. But Keith was more than that. His love for his wife and his children, his generosity with friends, and his zest for life created a man with an indomitable spirit. This is his story.

Alaska

Don and Linda’s 50th Anniversary Adventure

This travel album commemorates a couple’s trip to explore the wonder of Alaska, taken to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.

3150 Studio Artists

Women Inspiring Women Exhibit

This video commemorates the fiber art created by the 3150 Studio Artists and featured in an exhibit entitled Women Inspiring Women. The exhibit uses the influence and inspiration of women artists, past or present, to inform contemporarywork, resulting in pieces rich with intertextuality in media, form and content.

Mike Weddington

Wakeboarding Champion

by Lou Weddington; Mike and Nancy Weddington

This book traces the earliest days of Mike Weddington’s passion for wakeboarding through training and first competitions,ultimately leading to earning the title of World Champion. It features the recollections and stories from friends, family andfellow competitors.

Webbed Toes

A Birth Mother’s Story

By Winnie Latham

In this personal history publication, Winifred Latham takes readers on the journey of her life, from growing up in small town Washington, North Carolina, to earning a nursing degree from the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, to locales both stateside and international during her career as a United States Air Force nurse in the Vietnam War era. This candid memoir shares Latham’s story as a young woman who was date raped before finishing nursing school in the late 1950s and, finding herself pregnant, her agonizing decision to give the baby up for adoption. Woven throughout the narrative is her struggle to maintain the secret that she carried with her for 35 years. Latham’s story goes full circle when she receives aletter out of the blue from a woman who knows about the child she thought she would never see again.

MaryMac Kear’s Chapel Hill Scrapbooks

This volume reproduces photographs, correspondence, ticket stubs, and other souvenirs collected by MaryMac Kear during her time in the Chapel Hill in the 1930s and 1940s. It is the ultimate preservation of a family member’s cherished memories.

Ingrahaven

A Hundred Years

by Elizabeth Reid Murray

This publication explores the history of a house named Ingrahaven in Wadesboro, North Carolina, built and owned by members of the Ingram-Little-Davis family. The book also recollects some family history as well as provides a look at everyday life for a family in North Carolina from 1912-2012.

Johnson / Ragland Photo Albums

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