Shoenewald working on historical narrative book

Local author Lea Schoenewald has a new book proposal approved by History Press, a part of Arcadia Publishing. Schoenewald’s book will be about historical narratives of the Gebo, Crosby, and Kirby mining camps from the early 1900s. 

Schoenewald hopes to complete the book by the middle of October of this year. She has an editor working with her through the entire process and will send photos as well as they work through the chapter. The book will finally be published in the spring of 2024. 

Schoenewald has a personal family connection to the Gebo area with her grandparents, who used to live there. Schoenewald added, “I have already interviewed several families who either lived there or their ancestors did, and they have shared photos and stories. And Dorothy Milek, of course, when she did her history of Hot Springs County, she had an entire chapter on coal. And the Milek family has given me permission to use Dorothy’s research. Iris Guynn did her master’s thesis on the people of Gebo and how they interacted and everything because there were so many different nationalities who lived in Gebo and interacted with each other, of course, on a daily basis. And I’m going to talk a lot about the different customs and things like that from the different nationalities… And, another reason why I wanted to do this was to help expand the archive of coal mining at the county museum’s archive and on Kirby and Crosby.”