*Sunday 3/23/25, 1pm: "Mount Vernon: Small-Town Tails and Tragedies Revealed."  At the Verona Senior Center, 108 Paoli St, Verona, WI.

Our guest this month will be our great friend and regional historian Brian Bigler. Brian's presentation "Mount Vernon: Small-Town Characters and Tragedies" focuses on the 1946 village of Mount Vernon’s history written by Amelia Pope, a self-proclaimed spiritualist who believed she could communicate with the dead.

Pope’s clairvoyant beliefs most likely encouraged and informed her way of relaying history. She focused on unusual experiences; the types of stories not always recorded in a standard local history. Pope penned visual prose of the local horse thief, tragic deaths, village characters, and the off the cuff historical experiences that took place during tiny Mount Vernon’s founding. These are tales that leave listeners asking - were the good old days really all that good?

Pope had both ties to Mount Vernon and Verona as well as her days spent at the Wonewoc Spiritualists Camp in the 1940s.

Brian has advised our historical society on all things history for many decades. He became interested in regional history and material culture when he was six years old and now more than sixty years later still finds the stuff of history fascinating. He is the founding member of the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society where the manuscripts, photos and artifacts for this presentation were drawn upon and where he still volunteers.