Author Talk: The Last Children of Mill Creek

The Field House Museum is pleased to welcome Vivian Gibson, author of the book The Last Children of Mill Creek, on Friday, February 16 at 1:00 pm. Her memoir chronicles the everyday lived experiences of her large family and the friends, shop owners, church ladies, teachers, and others who made Mill Creek into a warm, tight-knit African-American community. In her own words, “This memoir is about survival, as told from the viewpoint of a watchful young girl―a collection of decidedly universal stories that chronicle the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.”

This program is free with limited availability in person and on Zoom. Reservations must be made in advance through Eventbrite, by calling the Museum at 314-421-4689, or by emailing info@fieldhousemuseum.org.

About the Speaker:
Vivian Gibson grew up in Mill Creek Valley, a segregated working-class neighborhood of St. Louis that was razed in 1959 to build a highway, an act of racism disguised under urban renewal as “progress.” The three rooms of her childhood home were heated by a wood-burning stove; her family had no hot water, but what Gibson lacked in material comforts she made up for in imagination. She started writing short stories about her childhood memories after retiring at age sixty-six. Her work has been produced as part of 50in50: Writing Women into Existence, at the Billie Holliday Theater in Brooklyn, and published in The St. Louis Anthology (Belt Publishing, 2019.) She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.