Granny Sue Came to Town

Storyteller Susanna Holstein was here for two days last week - to visit, to tape the Stories in Focus TV show and to perform for Tales in the Village. We had lots of conversation, stories and FUN. Sue is the kind of person you wished lived next door. We have known each other through the web and occasional meetings for fifteen years and although she thrives on her farm in West Virginia and I am a born and bred city-girl we share many common interests which make the time fly by as we share our ideas and stories - - - rich ground for real friendship.

I also know Sue - as you can too - through her blog Granny Sue's News and Reviews. On her blog she generously brings you into her world as a homesteader in West Virginia, a storyteller, librarian and lets you know her large family. We had a good time talking about several of those personas when I interviewed her for Stories in Focus. I will publish that interview here as soon as it is ready.

Rather than show off the DC area I introduced Sue to my near-by neighborhood with a ride through the grounds of the spectacular Mormon Temple where the pink dogwoods were in lovely bloom.
 

Then we moved on to the old town Kensington for lunch at the funky non-pretentious Tea Room and a walk through of the shops housed in two stores called "antiques row" ending with some serious shopping at the Society for the Prevention of Blindness THRIFT SHOP.  In there I found a memory - a lidded glass candy dish very like the one my grandmother kept on her coffee table and Sue picked up "treasures" that she could see on the shelves in her antique shop. She really knows what things are - - and I learned a lot being with her. She opened my eyes to early pressed glass.

Her evening performance of stories and Appalachian ballads was "real" storytelling and the audience loved it.

I have wanted for a long time for the timing to be right to have Susanna here to tell stories and her visit was well worth waiting for.  Hoping she will be back soon.