Visit the South Branch Library on June 13 for a program by the North Carolina Humanities Council. Dr. Melinda Ratchford of the Road Scholars Program will present “Titanic: The Halifax Dead Speak” at 6 p.m.
After a 60-year interest in the R.M.S. Titanic and its history, Dr. Ratchford has visited Belfast, where the ship was built; Southampton, from where it sailed; Chelsea Piers in New York, the ship’s destination before it sank; and Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the bodies of victims were interred. In 1996, Dr. Ratchford also spent a week at the site in the North Atlantic where the ship sank. Through multimedia and memorabilia, she will tell the stories of some of the passengers who lost their lives on that fateful night in 1912 – stories of heroism, cowardice, faith and hope.
Retired from the North Carolina Public School System, Dr. Ratchford is a native of Kannapolis, NC and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Social Sciences from Appalachian State University. She has a Masters in Library Education from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and a Doctorate in Education from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Dr. Ratchford has given more than 250 presentations on the subject of the Titanic. The June 13 event is free and open to the public, with funding provided by the N.C. Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The South Branch Library is located at 1550 South Campus Drive in Creedmoor and is one of four branches of the Granville County Library System. For more details call 919-528-1752 or visit https://granville.lib.nc.us/ for a listing of other upcoming events!
