Mineola librarians document village history

Rebecca Klar
Margaret Ann Farmer and Cathy Sagevick on the release date of their book. (Photo by Rebecca Klar)

Village residents can see Mineola’s history come alive during a library presentation by the authors of a pictorial history of Mineola released Monday.

Cathy Sagevick and Margaret Ann Farmer will discuss the most interesting and shocking aspects of Mineola’s history they discovered while creating the book, “Images of America: Mineola.”

The presentation will be on Monday, Nov. 13, at 7 p.m., followed by a book signing. Proceeds from books bought at the library will go toward Friends of the Library, but copies can also be purchased at Barnes and Noble or on Amazon.

When putting together the book, Sagevick and Farmer, who are village librarians, used photos and information from the Mineola Historical Society. Most of the information came from old issues of local papers, such as the Hempstead Sentinel and Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

Considering newspapers were the only form of communication and documentation at the time, Sagevick said the papers wrote about the minutest details of the rural community. For example, they reported on a cow escaping.

In addition to being thorough, the reports were graphic.

“There were plenty of railroad accidents, and they told you in gruesome detail what happened,” Farmer said.

Arcadia Publishing, the company behind the “Images of America” series, is strict with the photos and information that can be included in the book. Arcadia requires high-quality photos and limits the percentage of images other than photos, such as maps and ads, which can be included.

Many of the images that were not allowed in the book will be featured in the presentation.

The librarians are using the presentation to tie Mineola’s past to its present, and help residents understand that village history is still relevant.

“We want people to be able to take pride in Mineola,” Sagevick said. “To know where we came from … and be able to walk around town or as they drive by and recognize that the past is still here. It might be under a little different façade.”

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