The December Brown Bag Lunch and Local Lore Series will feature a program about the 1907 engagement between barbed wire heiress Harriet Elise Ellwood and Syrian dragoman Said Kalil Haick.

The free program will be at noon Thursday, Dec. 4, at the Ellwood House Museum, 420 Linden Place, DeKalb.

Ellwood House Museum historic site caretaker William R. “Buddy” Avila will discuss the facts surrounding the scrutinized engagement. Participants also will learn about the engagement’s fiction and gossip.

“The Heiress & the Interpreter: Investigating the ill-fated ‘engagement’ of Elise Ellwood to Said Kalil Haick in July 1907” program is part of Brown Bag Lunch and Local Lore, a free lecture series offered as a collaboration between the DeKalb County History Museum and Ellwood House Museum.

Brown Bag Lunch and Local Lore is funded in part by the Mary E. Stevens Concert and Lecture Fund.

For information, visit ellwoodhouse.org/lectures.