4 War Vet, Ft. Ogden and More

The Lemon Bay Historical Society has again opened the Historic Green Street Church to the public for monthly community events.

Thomas Kreidler

Our next event will be on Tuesday, October 26 at 7pm. Thomas Kreidler, historian and Civil War re-enactor will do a presentation on Francis Calvin Morgan Boggess, a pioneer settler of Fort Ogden, a soldier, schoolteacher, cattleman and civic leader.
Our speaker, Thomas Kreidler, is a former Army officer, Vietnam veteran and retired professor. His hobby is cleaning veterans’ headstones and has spent many days at Indian Creek Cemetery in Punta Gorda, which has more than 100 veterans’ graves.
“It’s time alone to think about their stories,” he says. “I introduce myself and tell them I’m there to give them a haircut and spruce them up a bit.”
He’s even cleaned the graves of prominent men like Albert Gilchrist and Joel Bean.

Learn about Calvin Boggess and more Tuesday, October 26 at 7pm at the Historic Green Street Church Museum, 510 Indiana Ave., Englewood.

Admission is free but donations for the upkeep of the iconic building will be greatly appreciated.  CDC guidelines will be followed.

 

Surviving Sarasota

September 28, 2021  7:00 pm

Author and Poet Clarissa Thomasson will be speaking at the Green Street Church in Englewood as the Lemon Bay Historical Society again opens this historic building to the public. Due to the COVID Delta variant masks will be required. 

Thomasson will showcase her book Surviving Sarasota which highlights the lives of Sarasota County’s first American settlers from 1851 – 1865 as they endure the Third Seminole War, the American Civil War, and its aftermath. She has also written a poem for Sarasota County’s Centennial which can be viewed HERE.

Her first two novels, Defending Hillsborough and Reconstructing Hillsborough were chosen by the North Carolina Association of Public School Librarians for use in the high school study of the Civil War. Lorinda’s Legacy was “pick of the month” at Greensboro, NC Barnes and Noble.

In 2000, Thomasson returned to Florida and now resides in Venice, FL. where she has written five children’s books in her Little Green Monkey series, four novels: Florida Shadows, Florida Secrets, Florida Sunset and Surviving Sarasota set in Southwest Florida, a World War II novel—Over the Bridge—and Venice Dreamers, which highlights Venice’s original settlers.

Thomasson’s stage plays, Over the Bridge and Florida Shadows, each won first place in the Clarence “Bud” Jones Playwriting Competition at the Firehouse Theatre in LaBelle, FL, in 2014 and 2015.

Thomasson is also a freelance writer–having written for GRAND magazine, Yesterday in Florida—where she won a 2005 Florida Trust for Historic Preservation Award for her contributions to Florida history—and Eastside Venice Neighbors—where she wrote monthly articles on Florida history. She is also a contributor for the Venice Gondolier.

The Lemon Bay Historical Society is pleased to be resuming its monthly community programs and has additional speakers lined up for October and November plus the traditional Holiday Sing-Along in December. Don’t forget your mask.