A community-based project will culminate on Saturday in a music and art festival commemorating the legacy of Marion H. Skidmore. SUNY Fredonia Department of English faculty member Dr. Emily VanDette and undergraduate Monty Cooke of Hamburg, who is majoring in English adolescence education with a minor in creative writing, have spent the summer collaborating and working alongside Lily Dale community partners. They include Celeste Elliott, chair of the Lily Dale Woman's Day Event Committee; and Stacy Shull, owner of Sacred Grounds Coffee House.
Skidmore, an important activist and community organizer, was one of the founders of the Spiritualist community in Lily Dale, as well as a leading activist and organizer for the local women's suffrage campaign in Chautauqua County. She organized the first Woman's Day event in 1891, bringing such prominent suffragists as Susan B. Anthony and Anna Howard Shaw to Lily Dale to speak to crowds gathered in support of women's voting rights. She also founded a library in Lily Dale, which today holds one of the largest collections of Spiritualist literature in the world.
To commemorate the 200th anniversary of her birth, Marion Skidmore Day will feature live music performances by SUNY Fredonia students, art vendors, poetry, historic tours, a talk by Dr. VanDette about Skidmore's legacy in grassroots organizing, and a roundtable of speakers on the relevance of her legacy today. The event will also feature historic displays highlighting local history and Skidmore's life, as well as a tent library with free books, as a tribute to Skidmore's founding of the library in a tent in 1886. The Chautauqua County League of Women Voters, the Jamestown YWCA, and other community and Fredonia student organizations will be present, as well.
The event is slated from 12:00-6:00 PM in and surrounding Lily Dale's historic auditorium, and is free and open to the public.
Photo by SUNY Fredonia
