By FRANCES BRENT
Lois Sonnenberg grew up during the Depression Years, in a depressed part of Tonawanda, NY known as Gastown, in upstate New York near the Niagara Area. The times may have been depressed but Lois wasn’t. An extended family, a tight knit neighborhood, strong female role models and her own joyful and intrepid spirit launched her into wider world.
April 23, 2016 marks the celebration, at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, of the life of her friend and Colleague, the beloved BG School music teacher Jim Brown. Sonnenberg’s table at Grounds for Thought from 2 to 6 p.m. is along the Art Walk route. Her story, in part, is living the American dream in a small town community such as Bowling Green.
Eighty-eight years young now, and with Otie, her husband of nearly seventy years at her side, Lois turned her energies over the last five rears, into remembering, researching and writing “Gastown Girl.” She recounts a life, not free of challenges , so much as a life that was a non-stop journey to the next opportunity and adventure.
Among the titles she has enjoyed: crack the whip survivor, cheer-leader, French horn player, Girl State delegate, US Cadet Nurse Corp Cadet, University of Michigan Graduate, registered nurse, dairy farmer’s wife, mother, grandmother, English Teacher, French Teacher, Wood County Language Arts Consultant, originator of Wood County Young Writers’ Workshop, bridge player, Independent Language Arts Consultant, BGSU Assistant Director of Adult Learning, antique dealer, St.Mark’s Lutheran Council member, Cookie Minister, church choir member, author. That is just a sampling.
The book is dedicated to Tom Brokaw, that celebrator of obscure lives well lived. Her primary audience, for a memoir self-published on Amazon, is family and friends. The subtitle calls it a book published by five people in three states – parents and adult children. The family is wide, the friends are legion, but there is an appeal to a wider readership. Here is a life of real accomplishment, lead with little drama, but much thought, love, and old fashioned entrepreneurship. Lois Sonnenberg is a small town girl who goes through one transformation after another – while staying true to herself.
Available on Amazon and at Grounds for Thought. Sonnenberg’s earlier spoof Mother Goose verse is also on Amazon…and still selling!
