For the last few months, I’ve been working on a project with the Historical Society in Stewartsville, N.J., to transfer their hometown hero banner project into a commemorative book. The historical society held a launch party and book signing at their American Legion post on Saturday. Art director Gayle Hendricks and I were honored to attend.
The book dates back to a Memorial Day parade where Charlie Henshaw got the idea for a recognition banner program. The company that made the banners had an extra line available on each so he asked the families if they’d like to include a submarine name or a unit number. He discovered a lot of families didn’t have that information, and so he started researching… Eventually he built a PowerPoint so the final project could be found on the township and the historical society website. That way, these details would never be lost again.
Enter Louisa Miers and her daughter. Louisa volunteers with the historical society— which apparently the members of the society welcomed Charles when he started this project. She thought Charlie should have a book. Charlie disagreed. Louisa looked for a publisher. She had no luck. Her daughter found me online and cold-called me.
The rest is history.
Parisian Phoenix Publishing 
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