Palmer history takes spotlight in one-woman show

What you need to know:

• New one-woman show “A Librarian’s Epilogue,” by local playwright Bridgette Preston, will be performed April 7-8 in Palmer. The play highlights the life and legacy of longtime Palmer librarian Sally Gwin.
• Proceeds from the production will support construction of a new Palmer library as the community continues efforts to rebuild after the 2023 roof collapse.
• The play draws on Preston’s personal connection to Gwin and explores both her professional impact on the Palmer Public Library and stories from her personal life.

• Short on time but need the local news scoop? Get free weekly news in your inbox for Mat-Su, from Mat-Su.

Nearly three years after the Palmer Library suffered a catastrophic roof collapse, the author of an upcoming one-woman play hopes to bring down the house with her tribute to a pioneering Palmer librarian.

Bridgette Preston is a local playwright and historian whose play, “A Librarian’s Epilogue,” is set for April 7-8 at the Palmer Moose Lodge. The play stars Diana Bailey and chronicles the life and times of Sally Gwin, who was Palmer’s first credentialed librarian, holding the position from 1979 to 1989.

“She was just an instrumental person in the history of the Palmer Public Library,” Preston said.

During Gwin’s tenure, the library went from a 1,000-square-foot facility crammed into the Palmer City Hall annex to the modern 12,000-square-foot facility it occupied until heavy snows in 2023 damaged the roof beyond repair. She was also there when the transition from analog to digital began in the late 1980s.

The play follows Gwin’s work as a librarian and also touches on anecdotes from her personal life, such as her friendship with Arctic explorer Ada Blackjack and her dealings with infamous Palmer character Wild Bill Nelson.

Preston has a personal history with Gwin on which to base her work. Gwin hired her to be a storytime librarian in the early 1980s, and she has been working on the play about her late friend for about five years, she said. With the library’s recent collapse, she said it seemed like a perfect time to highlight the library’s early history.

With Palmer currently grappling with how to pay for its new library, Preston said now is an ideal time to remind people of the work done in the early days by dedicated professionals like Gwin.

“For 50 years, the Palmer Public Library was kept alive pretty much through the efforts of local women who knew the importance of a library in a community for their families, for their children,” she said.

When Bailey — who previously starred in Preston’s one-woman play about Dorothy Page, a well-known Wasilla matriarch — said she had availability this spring, everything just kind of came together.

The play serves as a bit of a final, unwritten chapter in Gwin’s life, Preston said. She has been in contact with the former librarian’s daughter, who provided additional biographical information that helped provide more context.

Preston said the show is a fitting bookend for her own library tale.

“I started my career at the Palmer Library as a storytime librarian under Sally Gwin, and now, decades later, I’m telling her story on stage. It feels like everything has come full circle,” she said. “What began as a job became a lifelong passion for preserving the history of this town and its library.”

All proceeds from the production (tickets are $20) will go toward the construction of the new library, which isn’t expected to be completed until 2027.

The play is just one of several projects Preston has been working on recently with the help of a small, dedicated group of friends who form the nucleus of Grandmother Raven Productions. Grandmother Raven co-produced the one-woman show along with the Palmer Historical Society. Past Grandmother Raven productions include Preston’s popular cemetery walking tours, which she plans to continue this year with a new installment focusing on Mat-Su matriarchs.

She is also finishing a historical cookbook that focuses on recipes from the women who lived and worked at the Hatcher Pass mine between 1911 and 1951. Preston co-wrote the book with her granddaughters, Mareva and Bianca Dargis.

All proceeds from her projects go to benefit local nonprofits, said Preston, who studied journalism before moving to the Mat-Su to raise a family.

Now retired, her passion is Palmer’s past.

“There are just amazing stories that we are lucky to be able to share and tell.”

“A Librarian’s Epilogue” by Bridgette Preston runs April 7 and 8 at 7 p.m. at the Palmer Moose Lodge. Tickets are available online.

-- Matt Tunseth is a freelance journalist from Southcentral Alaska.