Join us at Harry’s Hofbrau in Redwood City on Tuesday, April 21. Harry’s opens at 11 am for cafeteria style lunch; our meeting will start promptly at 12 noon. See the MEETING INFO menu item for directions. This month’s topic is

Joan Larabee on “Mary Chesnut and her Diary”

Mary Boykin Chesnut was the wife of U.S. Senator James Chesnut, Jr., of South Carolina. He was the first U.S. senator to resign after Abraham Lincoln’s election, submitting his resignation on November 10, 1860—just four days after Lincoln was elected president on November 6. South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860. Mary began keeping a detailed journal and notes on the events starting with Lincoln’s election, continuing throughout the Civil War and for several months afterward.

Joan Larrabee grew up in a military family; one great-grandfather served in a New York regiment as a teenager at the end of the Civil War. She earned a degree in history at Stanford University and a Master of Urban Planning at San Jose State. She worked for the City of San Jose in the fields of community services, public works, and transportation.

Join us at Harry’s Hofbrau in Redwood City on Tuesday, May 19. Harry’s opens at 11 am for cafeteria style lunch; our meeting will start promptly at 12 noon. See the MEETING INFO menu item for directions. This month’s topic is

Tonya Graham McQuade on “Patty’s Lament”

Tonya’s presentation is the heartbreaking 19th-century Irish ballad “Patty’s Lament.” In the song, Patty (or Patrick) leaves Ireland, where he faces hunger and poverty, hoping to make his fortune in America. Instead, he is given a gun and told to “go fight for Lincoln.” After hard fighting in which he loses a leg, all Paddy receives is a wooden leg. He bitterly curses America and wishes he were “home in dear old Dublin.”

Tonya Graham McQuade is the author of A State Divided: The Civil War Letters of James Calaway Hale and Benjamin Petree of Andrew County, Missouri, 1862-65, and is a contributing writer to the Emerging Civil War website. She has a love for both history and historical fiction and a passion for writing which she plans to continue pursuing. Last October she went on a book tour in Missouri to discuss her book at many of its relevant sites, and she has some related historical fiction novels she plans to work on now that she has retired—after 33 years—from teaching English at Los Gatos High School.

Tonya is the great-great-great granddaughter of James Callaway Hale, who wrote forty of the letters in her book. Hale’s daughter Mary Ann married the brother of Benjamin Petree, who wrote the other ten letters. In A State Divided, Tonya tells the story of these two Missouri soldiers as they march and drill with their regiments, avoid several close calls with guerrillas and enemy troops, witness the buildup to the Vicksburg Campaign, get an in-depth look at wartime St. Louis, overcome illness, trek with Sherman through the Carolinas, ponder the devastation they encounter, celebrate victory in Washington, D.C., and spend a lot of time sitting around, longing to be home, writing letters to their families.

Tonya lives in San Jose, California. She is an active member of Emerging Civil War, South Bay Civil War Round Table, South Bay Writers/California Writers Club, National League of American Pen Women, and Poetry Center San Jose. You can learn more about Tonya on her website at tonyagrahammcquade.com, as well as find photos related to her book and to her research trips to Missouri. You can also find links to her Chasing History and Emerging Civil War blog posts, her poetry and photography, and her social media sites.