The Jackson Purchase Historical Society (JPHS) will meet on Saturday July 16 at 10:30 am at the Second Christian Church on 512 E. Water Street in Mayfield. Our principal speaker will be Jayne Moore Waldrop who will present a two-part program. She will discuss and read from her collection of short stories, Drowned Town, she will also discuss her forthcoming children’s books on Ellis Wilson and Helen LaFrance, African American painters from Mayfield. 
She will be joined in his by Michael McBride, the illustrator for the Ellis Wilson book. Copies of Drowned Town will be available for purchase and signing at the meeting.
The program will also be available by ZOOM for those unable to attend in person.
Register in advance to attend the meeting via ZOOM. Registration is not necessary for in-person attendance for this meeting:
To register in advance for this meeting on Zoom go the URL below: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAqfu2vqTIiGdLfAMzhlfRvcHBf2_L45LIO
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Those attending should comply with current state and local public health guidelines for gatherings. The meeting room is large and will allow ample social distancing. Masks will be available for those who wish one. The Society continues to monitor the regional public health situation and may make appropriate adjustments.
The publisher of Drowned Town, the University Press of Kentucky, describes the book: “They had been told their sacrifice was for the public good. They were never told how much they would miss it, or for how long. Drowned Town explores the multigenerational impact caused by the loss of home and illuminates the joys and sorrows of a group of people bound together by western Kentucky’s Land Between the Lakes and the lakes that lie on either side of it. The linked stories are rooted in a landscape forever altered by the mid-twentieth-century impoundment of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers and the seizing of property under the power of eminent domain to create a national recreation area on the narrow strip of land between the lakes. The massive federal land and water projects completed in quick succession were designed to serve the public interest by providing hydroelectric power, flood control, and economic progress for the region—at great sacrifice for those who gave up their homes, livelihoods, towns, and history.
“The narrative follows two women whose lives are shaped by their friendship and connection to the place, and their stories go back and forth in time to show how the creation of the lakes both healed and hurt the people connected to them. In the process, the stories emphasize the importance of sisterhood and family, both blood and created, and how we cannot separate ourselves from our places in the world.”
Ellis Wilson was born in Mayfield. He was among the first African Americans to attend the Art Institute of Chicago. He was the recipient of several Fulbright Awards and was a prominent member of the Harlem Renaissance. His work is in a number of museums and private collections Helen LaFrance was also a Mayfield native and remained active as an artist in the community until her death in 2020 at age 101. She was self-taught and was widely respected as a Folk Artist who documented rural life, especially African American life, in west Kentucky.
Jayne Moore Waldrop is a native of the Jackson Purchase as well as a Kentucky writer and lawyer. She’s the author of Drowned Town (University Press of Kentucky, 2021); Pandemic Lent: A Season in Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2021); and Retracing My Steps (Finishing Line Press, 2019). She is a graduate of the University of Kentucky (B.A., J.D.) and the Murray State University MFA in Creative Writing Program.
Michael J. McBride is a Nashville based African American artist and a professor at Tennessee State University. He has illustrated over 75 children’s books and he was recently commissioned to paint a large mural honoring late Congressman John Lewis in downtown Nashville. McBride earned his undergraduate degree in art from Tennessee State University and his graduate degree in painting from Illinois State University.
