Personal

I grew up in Aurora, Illinois, a sprawling city located some forty miles west of Chicago (current population is about 175,000).  I earned a B.A. degree in English from Illinois College in Jacksonville, a small school in central Illinois for which I will always have much abiding respect and affection.  Founded in 1829, its alumni include William Jennings Bryan, whose initials are still plainly visible on one of the campus buildings where he carved them over 100 years ago.  Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Greeley, Bronson Alcott, and country lawyer Abraham Lincoln are just a few of the nineteenth-century celebrities who addressed Illinois College audiences.

After graduation I immediately set out for Urbana-Champaign to work on my master’s degree in library science at the University of Illinois.  The U. of I.’s library is one of the largest in the world, and I was fortunate to land both a job in the Rare Book Room and an assistantship with a highly respected scholar and bibliographer in the Library Science program.  After I received my M.S. degree in 1974, I worked for a couple of years at Eureka College’s library in Eureka, Illinois, then four years at my alma mater, Illinois College.  In 1980 I moved here to Mary Washington College (now the University of Mary Washington).

As you can see by this Web page, some of my interests include non-fiction writing, based on literary and historical research. I also enjoy hiking in the Shenandoah Mountains.

I occasionally set off for the mountains with my two children.  We have explored many of the trails along Skyline Drive and have observed deer, turkeys, and even a couple of bears!  This photo of us (along with my daughter’s furry puppet friend) was taken in the summer of 2000 at one of Skyline Drive’s many overlooks.  They now have their own lives,  but we try to stay in touch.

We also get together whenever we can.  We went to Skyline Drive in June 2013 and climbed Mary’s Rock at Thornton Gap near Sperryville.   There are 360-degree views from the top, and my daughter took the photo that’s on my website’s masthead (that’s me at the far right). I’m not sure where we were when I took the one at the right, but that may have also been at Mary’s Rock–or perhaps Hawksbill Gap.

Left: My son and I went to Shenandoah in October 2012, and he took this photo above a waterfall at Whiteoak Canyon. Right: A humorous shot of me on Skyline Drive in the fall of 2025.  (Photograph courtesy of Janet Hedrick. Click on images to enlarge them.)

I also enjoy book collecting and reading.  My bookcases include fiction and nonfiction, and along with many reference works, there is a shelf or two devoted to bibliomania (that is, book collecting).  If you’re interested in used, out-of-print, or rare books, here are some of my favorite sites:

My partner, Janet Hedrick, and I enjoy many activities together, including hiking, going to baseball games, and exploring towns all over Virginia (and beyond)! Janet is particularly active on the campus of the University of Mary Washington (she is a member of the class of 1973), and here we are enjoying a program at the University’s popular Great Lives lecture series.