‘One County, One Book’ selects local author’s Civil War-era book
When one modern-day nurse decided to tell the story of a nurse from the 19th century, she ended up presenting a gripping tale that has been grabbing readers’ attentions.
Schenectady County’s One County, One Book program features the historical fiction book `My Name is Mary Sutter,` which coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and introduces readers to a midwife dreaming of becoming a doctor during the war and the struggles she must go through to reach her goal.
Robin Oliveira, the author and a Loudonville native, is visiting the county Friday, April 8, to talk to Scotia-Glenville and Schenectady high schools students who’ve been reading the book. The following day, Saturday, April 9, she is presenting a program at Schenectady County Community College at 2 p.m. to discuss her research process with writing the book. The event is free and open to the public, but seating will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.
`We are just thrilled. The book has really just resonated and connected with many people so I think it has been a good choice for us,` said Karen Bradley, coordinator for the county book program. `She said she would be thrilled to come and be part of the community read. It has really provided us with some wonderful programming opportunities.`
Normally the community votes on the book selection, but Bradley said interior renovations to the county library and fiscal concerns almost resulted in the annual program being skipped for a year. After library patrons heard Oliveira talking about her book on WAMC, they called the library, which led to the book’s selection. The book also fit nicely with the upcoming Civil War anniversary and other themed events, such as the Civil War Living History Day at Mabee Farm, in Rotterdam Junction, on Saturday, April 16.
`Everything just seemed to line up perfectly, like it was meant to be,` said Bradley. `We are going to have the Musicians of Ma’alwyck providing Civil War era music with her program, so that will be a nice addition.`
The Open Door Bookstore on Jay Street, in Schenectady, is also partnering with the county library to offer a 20 percent discount on the book until the day of the program at SCCC on April 10. A paperback version of the book was also recently released and the same discount will apply.
`Her talk is going to focus on the research for the book, and it is just incredible on what went into making the book,` said Bradley.
`My Name is Mary Sutter` is the first book Oliveira has written, and she started writing it in 2002 and completed it in 2008 while, in between, spending two years in graduate school and raising her two teenagers.
`I personally love a big fat book full of subplots and connecting dramas so I wrote the book like that, so that is the kind of book that I enjoy. What is passionate to me about this particular story is this is a story we have forgotten about in American History. We have forgotten about the nurses and the doctors that took care of wounded American Civil War soldiers,` said Oliveira. `They did it with courage and valor and unfailing generosity, when most people in modern day would run away screaming.`
There was something about the story that she couldn’t let go of and there were often times she wondered whether anyone would find the characters interesting and the story as enticing as she did.
`I had to tell the story whether or not anybody was going to read it besides myself,` she said. `I do love research, and it was really interesting to see where the research took me in terms of story, so that part I was wildly interested.`
Eventually she ended up at the National Archives and the Library of Congress looking through original documents that were around 150 years old. Some of the items she studied were the diary of the nurse at Lincoln’s dying child’s bedside, hospital admission ledgers, rosters of nurses hired as wounded numbers grew in the war and personal letters of Dorothea Dix.
`They were wrapped in plastic, they were crumbling, they were yellow and I remember feeling if those documents themselves took me back in time,` she said.
Sutter and herself also shared the same profession of being a nurse, which she also saw as a connection between her and what she was writing, among other connections.
`I am a very persistent human being and in that way Mary and I connect with one another,` she said.