Join the Friends of the Olive Free Library as we celebrate the release of two books by local authors: Melissa McHugh’s “Town of Olive” (with an introduction by Kate McGloughlin) and McGloughlin’s “Do Good.” The event will include readings and discussion, refreshments, book signings and, a guided tour through the Olive Free Library Local History Museum and Historical Archive.

Melissa McHugh is an educator, business woman, archivist and the Director of the Olive Free Library in West Shokan. Her book, “Town of Olive” offers a glimpse of how the Town of Olive began. She tells the story of the town through photographs, many of which are from her curated exhibit about the history of the Ashokan Reservoir at the Olive Free Library’s Local History Museum. These images transport readers from the early 1700s to the mid-1900s and encapsulate how the various citizens of the town earned a living and spent their leisure time. 

The Local History Museum and Special Collections of the Olive Free Library serve to collect artifacts related to the history of the Town of Olive and its inhabitants, with concentrations in the time of the town’s settlement through the completion of the Ashokan Reservoir and early 20th Century. The current exhibit: A Town Shaped by Water: 200 years of Olive History, curated by Melissa McHugh, is the culmination of six months of research, collected stories, and donated items. The exhibit includes photos, ephemera, and colorful stories collected through oral histories of several Town of Olive’s notables.

Kate McGloughlin, a twelfth-generation resident of Ulster County is a celebrated painter and printmaker who currently lives in Olivebridge, NY. McGloughlin’s latest book, “Do Good” is excerpted from the commencement speech she gave in 2015 at Onteora Central High School, 35 years after her own graduation from that school. Drawn from her lifetime of spiritual shenanigans, each page treats life's pitfalls with homegrown wisdom and suggestions for living a good life.