Speaker: Joanne Dobson, author

Joanne Dobson, novelist, retired English professor, and creative writing teacher at the Hudson Valley Writers Center, will speak about her latest book The Nurse Who Came from Away: Mildred McKinley, R.N., Depression Era Nurse. The book, reconstructed from smart, sassy and often hilarious letters sent home over decades, chronicles a life in motion: nursing school, Depression-era struggles, bustling New York hospitals, love, loss, and the forming of a family far from home. This account touches the lives of two Quaker Hill residents, Amanda Akin Stearns, known as the “Civil War Nurse,” and Annie Thomas, who served as a Red Cross nurse during World War I.