We had a most wonderful time with Jackie Pels, October 1st, 2015.  Our special guest at our Annual Membership Meeting.  Jackie talked about books, her publishing history with Alaska and Seward history rolled in.  An Alaskan by birth, her stories are laced with nostalgia and humor.  Many of her books are available on our library shelves.  Jackie's bio reads:

"Born in Seward, reared mostly in coastal Alaska, Jackie Benson Pels graduated from Kenai Territorial High School in 1953 and from the School of Journalism at UC Berkeley 30 years and six children later. As Hardscratch Press, named for a family codfishing station on Unga Island in the Shumagins, she has published more than two dozen personal and community histories, including her own Unga Island Girl: Ruth’s Book; Any Tonnage, Any Ocean; and Family After All: Alaska’s Jesse Lee Home, Vol. II, Seward, 1925-1965, which won the Alaska Historical Society’s “Contributions to Alaska History” award. She is in Seward this month researching “the mural capital of Alaska.”

Thank you Jackie for sharing your stories, history and songs with us.  The Friends hope to have you visit again.  Note: Jackie is a Life Time member of the Friends of the Library.