University Libraries and Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives will host a book talk by authors Hal E. Pugh and Eleanor Minnock-Pugh, on their book Naomi “Omie” Wise: Her Life, Death and Legend on March 21, 2024 at 3:30 p.m. in the Oakley Room of Alumni House on UNCG’s campus.

The event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.

Please RSVP.

Naomi Wise was drowned by her lover in the waters of North Carolina’s Deep River in 1807. Her murder has been remembered in ballad and story for well over two centuries. Mistakes, romanticization, and misremembering have been injected into Naomi’s biography over time blurring the line between reality and fiction. Authors Hal E. Pugh and Eleanor Minnock-Pugh, whose family has lived in the Deep River area since the 18th century, are descendants of many people who knew Naomi Wise or were involved in her murder investigation. This is the story of a young woman betrayed, shedding light on the plight of impoverished women in early America and the inner workings of the Piedmont North Carolina Quaker community that cared for Naomi and her daughter and kept their memory alive.