La Salle County Genealogy Guild to host Karen Roth to talk about the Edgar Bundy Memorial School

Karen Sweetwood Roth is scheduled to speak 1 p.m. Saturday, April 20, at the La Salle County Genealogy Guild, 115 W. Glover St., Ottawa.

She will talk about The Edgar Bundy Memorial School, one of the one-room school houses of La Salle County. It was moved from its original location near Ransom to between the Shepherd and Central schools in Ottawa. Roth was the librarian at Lincoln School until her retirement in 2018. Since then, she has volunteered to put on programs at the Bundy School and has expanded the educational program there, to include children ages kindergarten through sixth grade.

Roth has been a columnist for The Times, since 2001. In 2009, she was the national winner of The History Channel’s “Lincoln Lesson Plan” competition and in 2014, was recognized by the Illinois Library Association and awarded the Robert Doyle Conference grant. In 2015, her essay about Abraham Lincoln “272 Words of Hope” was selected for inclusion in the book “Gettysburg Replies.” She also has received the Dean R. Martin Distinguished Service Award from the Ottawa Elementary school district in 2018.

Refreshments will be served. Regular guild hours are from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday and Saturday. Walk-ins are welcome.