Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday
CGS March Membership Meeting with Frances Dinkelspiel
Saturday, March 14, 2009

Photographs by Kathryn M. Doyle, Oakland, California.

A Mini-Bloggers' Summit at CGS

Sheri challenged me to get this up right away and Cheryl said I could hint at her secret so I'm putting up this quick post to share the photo of our mini-summit this afternoon at the California Genealogical Society March Membership Meeting.

Jennifer Regan, Cheryl Palmer, Sheri Fenley and Kathryn Doyle.

Jennifer Jones Regan of Rainy Day Genealogy Readings and Graveyard Rabbit of Contra Costa County; Cheryl Palmer of Heritage Happens and Graveyard Rabbit of South Alameda County and Sheri Beffort Fenley of The Educated Genealogist and The Educated Graveyard Rabbit are three busy blogging ladies! (And they are a lot of FUN.)

Cheryl changed her plans to come to the meeting to hear Frances Dinkelspiel talk about her book Towers of Gold. Sheri brought her sister-in-law who is a Hellman Heller and is related to Frances. Jenn was wearing her green and chose the meeting over the St. Patrick's Day Parade in San Francisco.

Just so you know that the society is "equal-opportunity" - CGS does have two male bloggers who weren't at the meeting today. Steve Danko is in Houston attending the Family Tree DNA Conference on Genetic Genealogy and Craig Manson of GeneaBlogie has not made it to a CGS meeting since he joined the society last year.

Are there any other CGS members out there who are blogging genealogy?

Photograph by Tim Cox, 3/14/2009, Oakland, California.

March Membership Meeting - Frances Dinkelspiel

March Membership Meeting
Saturday, March 14, 2009
1:00 p.m.
CGS Library
2201 Broadway, Suite LL2
Oakland, California 94612

The California Genealogical Society is pleased to have local Bay Area author Frances Dinkelspiel as the guest speaker at our March membership meeting. Her book, Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California, is a San Francisco Chronicle best-seller which has been getting rave reviews since its publication by St. Martins Press in November 2008.

Frances will share some of the backstory about how she learned about her great-great-grandfather and the eight years she spent researching and writing the book. Isaias Hellman’s story is a page-turner and a must-read for anyone interested in California history. The book is a who's who of the banking world made even more facinating by the tie-ins to today's financial crisis.

It's fitting that Frances lecture at the CGS Library because a bit of her research was done here - a small bit when compared to the time she spent at the California Historical Society reviewing some forty cartons of material containing over 50,000 pages of archival documents including letters, receipts, copy books, court cases and newspaper articles.

Dinkelspiel is a fifth-generation Californian who grew up in San Francisco. A graduate of Stanford University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she spent more than twenty years in the newspaper business, working as a general assignment reporter for Syracuse newspapers in upstate New York and the San Jose Mercury News. She has taught at the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. Her freelance work has appeared in the New York Times, People Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Miami Herald, the Detroit Free Press and the Los Angeles Times.

Frances is also the author of a literary blog, Ghost Word: Ethereal Thoughts on Books and Writing
Please note that the short membership meeting starts promptly at 1:00 p.m. Frances' talk follows at about 1:20 p.m. She will be available afterward to autograph and sell books. Please arrive early.

Towers of Gold

Last Saturday night I attended a book reading by Frances Dinkelspiel at A Great Good Place for Books in Montclair. Frances is the author of Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California. The challenge was to try and distill 335 pages and an eight year process into a fifteen minute talk. It can't be done but Frances shared enough about her great-great-grandfather that it left her audience wanting to know more. The story behind the title is priceless and begs the question, "Is there a modern-day Isaias Hellman who can solve today's financial crisis?"

Frances and I actually "met" a few months ago because of the CGSL blog. I was looking through Sitemeter or MyBlogLog stats and noticed that a reader had come from a blog called Ghost Word. That reader was Frances and Ghost Word is her blog about books and reading. I learned that she was a local (Berkeley) author about to publish her first book.

Frances has been getting rave reviews for Towers of Gold. I've been following her progress as she climbs the Amazon.com sales rank. And I'm happy to report that CGS Events Chair Carolyn Steinberg is scheduling Frances to come and speak at CGS in 2009. It's fitting because a bit of her research was done at our library – a small bit when compared to the time she spent at the California Historical Society reviewing over forty cartons of her gg-grandfather's papers.

Susan Kitchens of the Family Oral History Using Digital Tools blog wrote a fantastic review – Towers of Gold: History of the Man Indistinguishable From the History of California. She admonishes everyone to "Just Read It."

The book has much to offer. If you’re interested in the history of California and the West, or history of Jews in America, or the history of railroads, banking or how large economies are built, or if you wish to contrast the dynamics of today’s economic gloom with yesteryear’s boom, you will find Towers of Gold to be an eminently worthwhile read. Additionally, if you’re a personal or family historian, this is a valuable reference for those whose ancestors crossed paths with Isaias Hellman. Finally, Towers of Gold is a triumphant example of the best possible outcome from a visit to your local historical society.

I'll amend this post as soon as I know the specific date that Ms. Dinkelspiel will speak at CGS.
Update: CGS is pleased to have Frances as our March Membership Meeting speaker on Saturday, March 14, 2009.