Local Author Always Had The Write Stuff
By Mike Siroky
BOURBON � Gerald and Maxine Kuhn are donating the work of a local author, Loren Graham, to the Bourbon Public Library.
Graham, now a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, wrote �A Face in The Rock,� in 1995.
�It is the story of how the Chippewa tribe lost their home on Lake Superior, Michigan, on Grand Island,� Graham said.
�My wife and I own a lighthouse on the island. My wife�s family has been on the island for 120 years. Her grandfather came to the island in the 1880s. He was a minister who baptized American Indian children and buried their dead.
�He had heard the stories; he was told the stories as legend. It was an unfortunate battle between the Chippewa and the Sioux. You know, parts of the legend are in �Song of Hiawatha.� A man named Henry Schoolcraft came to the island in the 1830s and met the last survivor of the battle.
�I inherited the legends and filled it out in the book.�
Graham said he remembers reading The Pilot news when growing up in Bourbon. As for the library, �I once dusted the shelves there, now my book will be there . . .�
He is a revered academician. He did his undergraduate work at Purdue. �Then I taught at Indiana University,� he said. �I was on the faculty at Columbia for 12 years and now jointly am on the faculty at MIT and Harvard.� He is a Professor of the History of Science in the Program in Science, Technology and Society.
In 1996, he earned the George Sarton Medal of History of Science Society and, in 2000, received the Follo Award of the Michigan Historical Society for his contributions to Michigan history.
He is a fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Natural Science.
�I started with some good teachers at Bourbon,� he said.
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