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by Mary Beth Sartor Obermeyer (Author)
Maintain isolation - practice good hygiene - wear a mask - be kind. We all know these methods of fighting COVID-19, but this prescription comes from the 1918 experience of Dr. Pierre Sartor, who battled the worldwide influenza pandemic in his small town of Titonka, Iowa.
Author Biography
A dancer, a musician, a journalist and an author, Beth Obermeyer used her journalism degree and a lifetime of dance and music to seed three careers: dance/soloist, Minnesota Dance Theatre, 1973-1983; her company, TA DA! Special Events/Public Relations, 1978-1990; and author, three books, published by North Star Press, 2011-2012. The third book, THE DAYS OF SONG AND LILACS, was a finalist, one of three from twelve states, Midwest Book Awards.
Her first book, THE BIGGEST DANCE, was a Summer Read Pick, St. Paul Pioneer Press and featured in The Quarterly of the Minnesota Historical Society, 2013. Beth's fourth manuscript, WHEN WINTER CAME, is about finding her grandfather's medical journal of the winter of 1918-1919, the great flu pandemic.
Beth graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Technical Journalism. While writing her first three books she studied at St. Catherine University, St. Paul, for two semesters, and at the Loft Literary Center, Minneapolis, for two years. She was a Professional in Residence at Iowa State University at the Greenlee School of Journalism, for one week. While on the faculty of the Minnesota Dance Theatre, Beth soloed with Garrison Keillor on "Prairie Home Companion"; with the Minnesota Orchestra in "The Tap Concerto," a twenty-minute piece in four movements, Morton Gould composer; with Gregory Hines, to promote his film, "Tap;" and with Christopher Plummer in Minnesota Orchestra's British Series. In 1979 she organized 1,801 tap dancers to open the Hennepin Center for the Arts.
Beth has done seminars to business and professional groups, including Public Relations Society of America. Her journalism degree is from Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta, social sorority, and Theta Sigma Phi, journalism honorary.
Beth is a native of Mason City, Iowa, the setting of her third book and has lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for the past fifty years. In Spring 2019 she will become a citizen of Luxembourg, a dual citizenship. Luxembourg is a setting for her fourth manuscript, WHEN WINTER CAME, along with Chicago, Illinois, and Bancroft and Titonka, Iowa.
