News

Our friends from James A. Garfield National Historic Site discuss the Reconstruction Era National Historical Network and how it preserves and interprets this critically important era in our nation’s history.

This talk is part of a monthly series on the leaders and legacies of the Civil War that is hosted by the James A. Garfield National Historic Site and Mentor Public Library. The series continues on Sept. 13 with a look at a special memorial that was erected after President Garfield was assassinated.

Several talks in this series can be viewed online in their entirety, including:

• Antietam: The Deadliest Day in US History
• Juneteenth: The Significance of June 19
• The Atlanta Campaign
• Gettysburg
• The Fourteenth Amendment
• The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
• Life & Legacy of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

Hydrangeas can be exasperating. What kind do you have? How do you prune it? And does the way you prune it change depending on what kind you have?

But hydrangeas are lovely when well cared for. And, fortunately, Lake County Master Gardener Carol Powers has the expertise to demystify this lovely flora.

You can visit our YouTube channel for more gardening and horticulture programs.

Two more tips for any gardeners out there:

1. Did you know that you can get free veggie, flower, and herb seeds from our Seed Library? Check out our collection  the next time you visit our Main Branch. Borrow up to 15 packets of seeds per season.
2. You should also check out the special collection from Holden Forests & Gardens’ Corning Library available at our Main Branch. In addition to a gorgeous arboretum in Kirtland, Holden also has a spectacular collection of gardening, horticulture, environmental and botany books at Corning Library within its arboretum. Dozens of Corning Library’s books are now available to borrow at our Main Branch. Thanks to a partnership between libraries, you can use your cards to check out books from this special collection. Our typical lending rules apply.

James A. Willis — author of Weird Ohio, Ohio’s Historic Haunts, and more tomes highlighting the strange nearby — shares some of his favorite Ohio oddities including:

• a homemade roller coaster in Pataskala, Ohio
• gum-encrusted restaurant in Greenville
• hot dog buns signed celebrities in Toledo

He also discusses what being a Paranormal Researcher entails, and why ghost-hunting shows sometimes frustrate him.

For more of the strange, local, and locally strange:

• William G Krejci discusses Ghosts & Legends of Northern Ohio
• D.M. Pulley on her favorite literary haunted houses
• Dan Chaon talks about what haunts him