Melanie Holmes New Book Talk & Signing
Schedule
Sat Jun 12 2021 at 01:00 pm to 02:30 pm
Location
French Heritage Museum | Kankakee, IL
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Join the French Heritage Museum and author Melanie Holmes as she signs and talks about her newest book "The Secret Life of PostcardsTracing Art and History through One Woman’s Collection"
Melanie Holmes is an award-winning author who descends from the Lemenager clan of L’Erable, Kankakee, Herscher, and surrounding areas. After her mother’s death in 2020, Melanie began researching her grandmother’s vintage postcard collection. Her grandmother was Elsie Costigan Lemenager. Her maternal grandparents were Michel LeVasseur and Caroline LaFleur and Hubert Lemenager and Matilda Patnaude.
Beginning in 1906, the vintage postcards serve as “time pegs” for the early 20th century, including World War 1 (Holmes’s grandfather, Neddie Lemenager served in the Army). The collection ranges from “views” (as postcards were called then) of Kankakee and Chicago to New York City, Detroit, and even Yellowstone National Park.
More than anything, this book helped Holmes connect the dots on her great-grandfather’s family (Dan Costigan Jr.), one of 12 children, some of the names of his siblings include: Daily, O’Connor, Collins, Ader, Bertrand, Olson, Gregoire, and Martin.
A native of Manteno, Holmes has written three nonfiction books. The most recent two were brought out back-to-back in 2019 (A Hero on Mount St. Helens, University of Illinois Press) and 2020 (Manteno, in Arcadia’s Images of America line).
Space is limited for this event. Please call the Kankakee County Museum to register (815-932-5279) or RSVP to Melanie directly (text 708-370-7743).
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Where is it happening?
French Heritage Museum, 165 North Indiana Avenue, Kankakee, IL, US 60901, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays: