Bill takes to the road to ATL's Big Bethel AME church for a special behind the scenes look at Heaven Bound, a morality play started 89 years ago has been going strong every year since. We learn what the play is all about, talk about the AME church with both the bishop and the senior pastor and speak to a couple of the actors in the play.
I met Dr. Lamar Sneed over a grave of one of his ancestors in the city cemetery. We talk through the life of TJ Jackson and why his leg is buried next to the rest of his body.
Dr. Sneed also discusses several parts of the history of the Cherokees in Georgia and some of the misconceptions of native American heritage.
https://www.georgiatribeofeasterncherokee.com
Bill talks to several players, politicians and school employees on the first Marietta football state championship since 1967.
The parade started at the location of the African American high school, called Lemon Street and several of the interview talked about this historic location.
The Emmy Award winning actor, Ed Asner is coming to Marietta! and we talk through his life from his humble beginnings in Kansas City, Kansas to the theater, TV and movies.
Checkout his one man play at the Strand Theater this weekend.
Bill caught up Stace Huff and Amanda Seals of the Marietta Pilgrimage. Six beautiful, cottage style homes in the Forest Hills neighborhood are on the tour. There is also an artisan market at Cobb Landmark's, Root House and a lot more.
Buy your tickets for the Pilgrimage, the Pilgrimage Gala and volunteer to help at: http://www.mariettapilgrimage.com
Bill toured the re-vamped Mistletoe Market, a classic holiday shopping and fundraising event of the Junior League of Cobb-Marietta.
The organizers are bringing together over 40 specialty merchants from across the Southeast for a premiere holiday shopping experience.
Shoppers have access to onsite monogramming, holiday décor, jewelry, luxury dog beds, and much more! The event will take place at the Cobb County Civic Center, November 14-17, 2019. Find more information regarding hours and ticket sales at www.jlcm.org.
Junior League of Cobb-Marietta is an organization of women working together to benefit women and children in the Cobb-Marietta community through fundraising and community service.
Why buy a blueberry farm near Marietta and start a whole new life? Because Jennifer Maxwell and her husband Matt care deeply about eating and buying local as an alternative to the organic movement.
The host, Bill Nowicki, met Jennifer while eating at the Marietta Square Market and Bill was intrigued by Jennifer’s journey from a dairy farm in Central New York to Marietta. Now Jennifer and Matt own Tiny Apple Farms, a reference to the crab apples that Jennifer saw on the farm. Now with blueberries, bees, figs, pears and chickens they are starting their journey as small farm owners. They hope to work with other local farms to produce dishes that are delicious and very local.
Check out the farm on Instagram and hopefully at the Marietta Square Farmers Market next spring.
We start Season 4 with Chris Brown, a long-time member of St James Church and someone who has painstakingly gone through the meeting minutes of the lay leadership and the records of the births, deaths, marriages and ceremonies that made the St James community from the 1840's until today.
Chris's story of the early church and the transition through the Civil War years is remarkable. For example, could slaves marry in the church? Could they be buried in the cemetery? Where did the church spend their money?
Chris Brown has the whole story.
https://www.stjamesmarietta.com
Also checkout:
https://www.archiveatlantapodcast.com
https://www.mariettahistory.org
https://www.cobblandmarks.com
How do you get a historian excited? You rebuild a historical building that was torn down and you bring it back to life.
That’s exactly what Grant Rivera and the Marietta School Board have decided to do. The site of the old Lemon Street High School, the black high school in Marietta, was torn down after integration in the 70’s. Now it is being rebuild to house Marietta City Administration offices. There is also work being done to use the Lemon Street grammar school across the street.
Grant Rivera has spearheaded the effort and he shares the story of the importance of telling the whole story of Marietta and building community at the same time.
Also, his daughter beat cancer and a fundraiser is coming up at Glover Park Brewery on 9/19/19 from 6 to 9 pm. Get your tickets here: https://give.choa.org/site/Ticketing?view=Tickets&id=101521
Rabbi Albert Slomovitz grew up in a divorced family and found solace in the synagogue near his home in North Miami Beach, Florida. So much so, that he decided to dedicate his life to educating young jews. After preaching in front of a congregation, all that changed and he shifted over to becoming a rabbi and then joining the Navy as a chaplain -- one of the few jewish captains in the armed forces.
Now he has a podcast, a professor and author and leader of the Jewish-Christian Discovery Center. His new book and podcast explore Jesus as a Jew and how his jewishness informed his whole life.
Find links to his podcast and his new book, which is coming out soon.
Ria Uppapati started a non-profit at 15 years old: Forever Earth, Inc. Bill met Ria and her Mom at a North Marietta Community Garden event and she had a lot to share, so we decided to do an interview.
She is working to reduce plastic locally, starting at her Dad's restaurant (Hemingways). She has also reached out to other businesses to recruit them to use metal plates with paper on top, a step in the right direction to reduce plastic waste.
She is also leading a battery recycling program (September 21th at Tucker park), sponsoring a child's college education in India and getting her classmates to join in.
Busy young woman!
Checkout these links to learn more and get involved.
Email Ria:
North Marietta Community Garden
https://www.cobbmastergardeners.com/project/north-marietta-neighborhood-community-garden/
Hemingway's
https://www.hemingwaysmarietta.com
Vivian Hansen grew up in Mississippi and Alejo Porras in Costa Rica. Even though they had very different backgrounds, they ended up in the Savannah School of Art and Design and fell in love.
They recently started a family and a business called Two Rivers Creative. They create book illustrations and many other wonderful art projects. Bill met them at a storytelling festival at Sewell Mill and knew they had a really cool story.
Here it is...
https://www.tworiverscreative.com
https://www.alejoporrasart.com
https://www.etsy.com/shop/vivianhansenart/
It seemed like everyone made it to Taylor Park to celebrate an exceptional mail carrier, Floyd Martin. He retired on Thursday after 35 years and has touched many lives in a special way.
This is a story of community, love and the impact of one person's life on so many.
Justin Waller and Thomas Monti are teachers at heart with a passion for beer brewing.
They met as middle school science teachers and became friends. When Justin's wife got him a home brewing kit, Justin and Thomas became interested and then obsessed with making beer and the science behind it.
Now they run, Schoolhouse Brewing in a new location in the Franklin Gateway area of Marietta.
They have cool touches, globes you might remember from middle school as well as school bus bench seats.
Check it out.
https://www.schoolhousebeer.com
Tom Dugan brings his one man play, Wiesenthal, to Marietta's Strand Theatre May 29th through June 2nd.
Tom's dad was a veteran who experienced the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp. Tom became a playwright and wrote the play after researching Simon Wiesenthal's Nazi hunting work.
However, this play is a mixture of laughs (it starts with a joke) and the quest for justice.
Get your tickets soon, they are going support fast.
Strand Marietta
770-293-0080
Tickets
Jerry King grew up in rural Mississippi and wanted out when he knew his life would be limited. So at 18 he joined the Army and ended up in operation Desert Shield to liberate Kuwait.
After 10 years, he got out and worked as a policeman and enjoyed interacting with people and dealing with every person uniquely.
Eventually, Jerry joined the SWAT team and took part on 1800 missions, but SWAT was not like being a patrolman, he missed the interaction with the public.
So photography was a way to re-connect with people and bring out there story through getting the right shot.
That was how J King Images was born and he continues to wow customers with his images.
jkingimages.com
Today I met with Diona McIntire, Dr. Tim Boone and Rebecka Kern at Park Street Elementary School.
Diona McIntire is the principal and is called to help change children's lives. Her passion started from the beginning. She redecorated the school and on this day was wearing pajamas so the children are reminded to get "lots of rest for the test", in preparation for skills testing.
I also spoke with Tim Boone, the secretary of the PTA and coordinator of the 75th Anniversary Gala and Rebecka Kern, the PTA president and a mom of a student at the school.
Checkout the gala and the programs at this school. They are always looking for help and it is a special place.
Attend the Park St Gala
https://park-street-pta.square.site/product/single-plate/15
Park Street's Website
https://www.marietta-city.org/parkstreet
In our second update, Stace Huff and Amanda Seals talk about the process of getting 6 homeowners to agree to have 4,000 people tour their homes.
Does it help that Stace is a therapist? You bet!
Forest Hills is a terrific place for this year's Marietta Pilgrimage. It has lovely homes that harken back to days when the roads into Marietta were dirt and central air conditioning was only a dream.
Enjoy!
The Marietta Pilgrimage is a huge part of Marietta. Every first weekend in December, thousands come to see some of .
This year is no different. Forest Hills neighborhood is the choice for 2019. This neighborhood began in 1928 and continues as an area of cute homes that were homes for Marietta merchants.
Get this special behind the scenes glimpse into the process of creating the pilgrimage tour.
http://www.mariettapilgrimage.com
We at Marietta Stories are obsessed with maintaining a sense of community in our crazy social media world. Well, Jean Parker, Sarah Bullington, Emily Hogarth, her husband Wes, Robin Plett and a bunch of other folks allowed me to tag along to one of their progressive dinners. They also made the night of “the giving kitchen” (https://thegivingkitchen.org) a non-profit created to help people in the restaurant service industry, with a $1000 check.
Enjoy the journey from appetizers to dessert and learn about this community of people that make Maple Ave one of the gems of the Marietta.
Bill catches up with all the dance teams prior to the Dancing with the Stars of Marietta show. He also meets some of the young dancers from Georgia Metro Dance Theatre (did I mention this was a fundraiser for this worthy cause), as well as witnessing some behind the scenes jitters from the teams.
Bill also catches up with the artistic director for the theatre, Ashleigh Whitworth and we discuss the importance of dance in children’s development.
Who won? You will just have to listen.
Send your tax deductible contribution to:
You know Sam Rambo from Rambo Nursery and Glover Park Brewery, but did you know Sam and his wife Hannah volunteered to be contestants on Dancing with the Stars of Marietta?
Well they did and Marietta Stories Podcast got a special sneak peak of the practice. Gray Stoner, the assistant artistic director of Georgia Metro Dance Theatre led Team #5 with her choreography.
Will they win? Come to the competition on Saturday, 2/9/19 at the Marietta Strand and support the Georgia Metro Dance Theatre to find out!
Tickets are available at: http://gmdtdwts.com
Michael Shaffer traveled to rural southwest Virginia for a church history talk; the story of a Methodist church that was built a year after the Civil War ended. Afterwards, an older lady presented a trunk full of papers and letters from Tom Colley, her relative who spent years as a member of the 1st Virginia Cavalry. She asked Michael to take the materials and create a book. Michael agreed on the spot.
From that trunk of materials, Michael Shaffer began piecing together Tom Colley’s story into the book, “Of Memory of Self and Comrades.” This collection of letters recounts Tom Colley’s service in the including his near death experience on the battlefield as well as the demons that appeared long after the bullets stopped.
Michael and Bill also discuss ways to tell the story of the South and the recent controversy over Confederate monuments.
Michael’s Website
http://www.civilwarhistorian.net
Amazon book link