WEIRTON — Jane Kraina and Mary Zwierzchowski, co-authors of the newly launched “Secrets and techniques within the Mist: The Historical past of Brown’s Island,” will discover the island’s lengthy historical past and the numerous households whose lives had been contact by occasions that occurred there, together with the coke plant explosion on Dec. 15, 1972, during which 19 males died and as many as 40 to 60 had been critically injured.
The lecture will probably be held Saturday at 1:30 p.m. on the primary ground of the Weirton Space Museum and Cultural Middle, positioned at 3149 Major St., Weirton. It’s open to the general public and admission is free though donations to help WAMCC are appreciated, in line with Savannah Schroll Guz, the museum govt director.
To enrich Kraina and Zwierzchowski’s discuss, artifacts from the island will probably be on show. Books will probably be out there on the market within the WAMCC present store, and the authors will probably be signing copies following the lecture. Refreshments will probably be out there.
Kraina, lead writer, spent her early years abroad together with her household the place her father served as a vice consul within the Overseas Service. After her father died in Bordeaux, France, her mom introduced Jane and her twin brother to Morgantown, the place she attended West Virginia College. In December 1972, she discovered of the explosion that occurred on Brown’s Island, killing 19 individuals who had been developing a coke plant. After getting married, she moved to her husband’s hometown of Weirton.
Kraina’s first revealed article — “In Time and the River,” about Brown’s Island — appeared in Goldenseal journal. She continued to jot down articles about West Virginia historical past for a wide range of publications and earned a grasp of science diploma in journalism at WVU. Kraina met Zwierzchowski whereas working on the Mary H. Weir Public Library in Weirton. Their first collaboration was an historic account in Goldenseal of Weirton’s Gypsy funeral — an article so well-received by readers that the journal reprinted it in its fortieth anniversary subject.
The previous Mary Martino grew up in rural Brooke County close to the previous mining city of Cliftonville, which might later change into the scene of her first revealed article, “The Cliftonville Mine Riot: A Forgotten Panhandle Mine Struggle.” In 1970, she moved to Weirton, the place she resides together with her husband, David Zwierzchowski.
She started her writing profession in mid-life. She attended West Virginia Northern Group School and shortly after gained employment on the Mary H. Weir Public Library, the place she developed a eager curiosity in native historical past. Her articles, revealed in Goldenseal, embrace “Holliday’s Cove Homicide Thriller,” “Loss of life of a Gypsy King,” “Singing Males of Metal” and “An Easter Tragedy,” the story of the 1951 Weirton bus crash. That is her first ebook.
