The Old Lyme Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library will host a unique historical presentation by Carolyn Wakeman on the namesake of the Library on Wednesday, Jan. 14, at 7 p.m. Co-sponsored by the Florence Griswold Museum, the program titled, Phoebe’s Place: Life and Letters on Lyme Street, celebrates the life of one of the most influential women in the community.
Phoebe Griffin Noyes, after whom Old Lyme’s public library is named, lived for most of her 78 years on the main street through town. But starting at age 14, she journeyed for a decade to New York where she stayed with an uncle who was a successful lawyer. Her education in the city shaped both her skill at miniature painting and the home school she later established beside the village green.
This talk, based largely on family letters, describes how one woman’s love of learning and painting influenced the culture of a town and established “a taste for art” in Old Lyme.
Wakeman grew up in Old Lyme and traces her own love of learning to countless hours spent reading on a window seat in the children’s room of the Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library. After retiring from the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, in 2008, she became intrigued by Old Lyme’s rich history.
Professor Wakeman is currently the writer and editor of the Florence Griswold Museum’s history blog and author of The Charm of the Place: Old Lyme in the 1920s.
The program is free and open to the public. Registration is required by calling 860-434-1684 or visit www.oldlyme.lioninc.org to register online under the Events calendar.
The snow date for this event is Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015 at 7 p.m.
The Library is located at 2 Library Lane, off Lyme Street in Old Lyme. Winter hours are Monday and Wednesday, 10am to 7pm; Tuesday and Thursday, 10am to 6pm; Friday, 10am to 5pm and Saturday, 10am to 4pm