VERGENNES — Vermont folklorist Jane Beck will present “Daisy Turner’s Kin”at Bixby Memorial Library in Vergennes on Wednesday, Feb. 10, at 6 p.m. Beck will share the story of the Turner family, a multigenerational saga spanning two centuries, played out across three continents.
The saga was related to Jane Beck by Daisy Turner, who had listened to her father, Alec Turner, recount stories of the family past. Her captivating narrative covers the early 19th-century British-African trade, shipwreck, birth of a biracial child, slave trading, enslavement, plantation life, escape, Civil War, moving North, battling racism, buying land and settling on a hilltop in Vermont that became a family center.
Turner also shared her own life story, a powerful and rare account of the African American experience in New England from the 1880s forward.
Beck founded the Vermont Folklife Center in 1983 and served as its executive director for more than three decades. The “Daisy Turner’s Kin” program is based on the material Beck presents in her recent book of the same name. The library has a copy of her book available to check out.
The Vermont Humanities Council is sponsoring the program.