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What inspired you to do what you do?

My mother had saved a trunk of letters, diaries and memorabilia to be the basis for her memoirs.  She died at age eighty-one, memoirs unwritten.  I had promised to help her write them. Using her documents and my own research, I chronicled her early life, including summer vacations in New Hampshire , boarding school and travel abroad.  The book offers a unique perspective on pre-WWII-Germany from the viewpoint of a teen-aged American girl on holiday.

What are some of your valuable memories?

Summers in Maine , picking blueberries so Mom could bake pies.

What do you do for fun?

In 2003, I took a quilting class at Material Things Quilt Shop and got hooked.  I continue to learn as  a member of the Western North Carolina Quilters Guild. 

What is something I cannot live without?

Chocolate, coffee, books

Best Advice:

Go for it

Things I’m proudest of:

Having my book published by Old Mountain Press
                 (www.oldmp.com/mariangowan.htm).

Being active in a writing group, and seeing each of us have our work published.

Describe yourself in one word:

Dependable

When you think of home you think of:

Western North Carolina mountains with my husband

Biggest Challenge:

Adapting to different skill requirements during my thirty years at Eastman Kodak

First Job:

Children’s counselor at Balsams Hotel and Resort, Dixville Notch , NH

Favorite Book:

As the Crow Flies, Jeffrey Archer

Biggest Pet Peeve:

People who pretend to be what they are not

How can Henderson County better help small business?

Continue to encourage people to shop locally by promoting local businesses.  I am impressed that most of the downtown store fronts are occupied.




 
Each month we feature an outstanding woman from Hendersonville, NC. Through these monthly features we hope that you will learn a little more about your friends and neighbors. 

    Marian Gowan, author of Notes from the Trunk, retired in 2001 with her husband, William, to Hendersonville , NC after a thirty-year career with Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester NY .  Her interests include writing, quilting, classical music, and cheering her husband’s senior softball team.  She is a native of Cleveland  Ohio and a graduate of Northfield Mount Hermon School , East Northfield , MA ; and Tufts University , Medford , MA.  You may contact Marian at mariangowan1@bellsouth.net
We honor Marian Gowan for her delightful success and the successful completion of her book.  Marian is a member of Page Turners Book Club, a group of women who support each others efforts as they strive to become published authors.  They regularily meet at Mountain Pie Company.  Marian.s book is available at our front counter.  Merri Tyndall
About the Book
The "notes from the trunk" included not only letters and diaries, but also advertising materials for textile machinery, business records, school records and old books and photographs.  Marian Gowan's mother, Helene Belger Lindblade, had saved these to be the basis of her memoirs.  She died at age eighty-one, memoirs unwritten.  Using documents from the trunk and her own research, Gowan has chronicled her mother's early life, including summer vacations in New Hampshire, boarding school and travel abroad.  The book offers a unique perspective on pre-WWII-Germany from the viewpoint
of a teen-aged American girl on holiday.
Compiled by Merri Tyndall, Mountain Pie Company, 3400 Asheville Highway, Hendersonville, NC, 28791. Do you have a suggestion
                    for "Knowing Me"?, a person to recommend? , perhaps you'd like to offer some recipes for the web site?
                                                        Call 828-693-0501 or e-mail ezfindone@aol.com
Henderson County Special Woman