September 9, 2016 Meeting Recap
We had a great meeting this Friday! Great speaker, lots of guests and old friends and a new member induction!
President Elect Ben Brewer did great job filling in at the last minute and did the honors of inducting our newest member, Laura Lane McKinnon. Laura is a SCAD grad and is the Director of Development at Union Mission. She'll be a great addition to the club.
It was great to see some familiar faces - Fran Harold, Boo & Iris Hornstein, and Roland Summers. Even our speaker, Tony Cope, is an old Savannah East member. And, we said goodbye to PP Donna Shea, who is moving to California where her husband has a new business venture.
Tony gave an interesting and informative talk centering around his new book "It's not that Lincoln: The Curious Stories Behind Savannah's Historic Street Names". Tony lives in Ireland now, but will be in town for a while longer and has some book signings coming up. You can find them listed on his Facebook page. Follow the story title link for more from his talk today.
Just a few quick facts from Tony's talk today:
- Lincoln Street is NOT named for President Lincoln. (I'm sure you guessed that from the title of his latest book). The street, which was around much earlier than President Lincoln, was named after Dr. Benjamin Lincoln, a revolutionary war hero.
- Gaston Street was named after William Gaston, the "prince of Savannah". Gaston was a banker and planter who never knew a stranger - he had two spaces in his crypt where strangers to the city could be interred until their families could be found.
- It not true that Savannah was founded as a debtors colony. Savannah was actually founded by the "working poor" - skilled laborers, farmers, carpenters and the like.
- He left us with an old proverb: "When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground."