Each poem within this collection, whether historically based, fictional, or fantasy, has some connection with or to my father’s sacred ground, the Old Mill Creek; founded in 1861, the 2,500-acre nature preserve is Ohio’s first district park. Your reading journey includes “Star-crossed Lovers Nevermore,” a poem inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Two poems connected with the family Home Cemetery, where generations of my father’s family and relatives rest, is nestled within the park. The final three poems are a trilogy, part fiction with small, surgical incisions of real events that follow a family’s journey through “Magic in the Trees,” “The Dragon’s Lair,” and “The Miracle of the Polished Stone.” The trilogy presents a dynamic illustration of the dichotomy of human consciousness; the Yin and Yang of the circle of reality and fantasy, tragedy and joy, and despair and redemption.

Founded in 1891 as OhioÃ's first park district, Mill Creek Park encompasses a unique wealth of natural and designed features that have been the backdrop for generations of family memories, spanning three centuries. A remarkable visionary, park founder Volney Rogers argued that the land itself could improve the lives of YoungstownÃ's residents. Through fresh air for mill-weary lungs and tree laced horizons for workroom-bound spirits, he knew a park would make the community a better place for families. And he succeeded magnificently. Rogers and the nationally known landscape architects that he hired created breathtaking vistas of LantermanÃ's Falls and scenic gorges and designed trails, drives, and three pleasure lakes. Other park features include nature preserves, display gardens, recreational fields, a Donald Ross-designed golf course, and a legacy of historic structures. Mill Creek Park indeed has earned its legendary claim as the most beautiful urban park in America.

Vivian Gibson grew up in Mill Creek, a neighborhood of St. Louis razed in 1955 to build a highway. Her family, friends, church community, and neighbors were all displaced by urban renewal. In this moving memoir, Gibson recreates the every day lived experiences of her family, including her college-educated mother, who moved to St. Louis as part of the Great Migration, her friends, shop owners, teachers, and others who made Mill Creek into a warm, tight-knit, African-American community, and reflects upon what it means that Mill Creek was destroyed by racism and "urban renewal."

Photographs from a Chester County mill town.

Casparus Johannes Steynmets emigrated in 1631 and settled in New Amsterdam. He had four wives. Descendant Benjamin C. Stymiest and his wife, Abigail Fardon and five children, moved to Canada in 1783. Descendants and relatives lived mainly in New York, New Brunswick, Ontario and British Columbia.