The Marshall County Historical Society and Museum are launching their popular annual Brown Bag Lunch & Lecture Series on March 8 at noon. Bring your lunch and enjoy a presentation by Barbara Olenyik Morrow on her book, Army Guy and Red Cross Gal: World War II Through the Eyes of Two Small-Town Hoosiers.
During World War II, Auburn, IN, attorney Bill Husselman served as a military police lieutenant with U.S. General George S. Patton’s 3rd Army as it marched across northwest Europe. Auburn music teacher Mary Brandon served as an American Red Cross club worker in Italy as Allied troops slogged up the peninsula. Never did Bill’s and Mary’s paths cross overseas, never did their duties – wildly different – overlap.
But their similar backgrounds, they were friends before the war, and their distinct voices and perspectives, as gleaned from wartime letters, form the heart of Morrow’s latest book. Morrow’s lecture on March 8 will highlight why these war-era stories merit our attention.
Morrow is the author of seven books, most focusing on Indiana history. Her books have featured college basketball coaching legend John Wooden, nature writer Gene Stratton-Porter, and famed Underground Railroad leader Levi Coffin. A former journalist who has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Morrow has lectured previously in Plymouth. She is married to Doug Morrow and is the sister-in-law of Dave and Chris Morrow and Susie and John Kreighbaum.
Autographed copies of her book (hardback, $27; paperback, $22) will be available before and after her presentation that day. The Museum is located at 123 N. Michigan St., Plymouth; phone 574-936-2306 for more information.
