Life Story Writing @ The Homestead
2025-10-03 15:00 - 16:00, 2025-11-07 15:00 - 16:00, 2025-12-05 15:00 - 16:00, 2026-02-06 15:00 - 16:00, 2026-03-06 15:00 - 16:00, 2026-05-01 15:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Bergquist Library at the Homestead in Gerry @ 4600 Route 60 Gerry NY 14740
Join us to explore life themes together and to create a written life story for personal reflection or to share with friends and family members.
Open to the public.

Homestead Library Services
2025-10-17 14:30 - 15:00, 2025-12-05 14:30 - 15:30, 2025-12-19 14:30 - 15:00 | Bergquist Library at the Homestead in Gerry @ 4600 Route 60 Gerry NY 14740
Help with library cards, borrowing/requesting materials, returning materials. Please bring passwords for digital assistance.

Event is at the Bergquist Library at The Homestead in Gerry.

Open to the public.

Book Club @ The Homestead
2025-10-17 15:00 - 16:00 | Bergquist Library at the Homestead in Gerry @ 4600 Route 60 Gerry NY 14740
The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
Artist’s daughter Penelope Keeling can look back on a full and varied life: a Bohemian childhood in London and Cornwall, an unhappy wartime marriage, and the one man she truly loved. She has brought up three children – and learned to accept them as they are. Yet she is far too energetic and independent to settle sweetly into pensioned-off old-age. And when she discovers that her most treasured possession, her father’s painting, The Shell Seekers, is now worth a small fortune, it is Penelope who must make the decisions that will determine whether her family can continue to survive as a family, or be split apart.
Copies are available through the library system.
No registration is required. Open to the public.

Book Club @ The Homestead
2025-11-21 15:00 - 16:00 | Bergquist Library at the Homestead in Gerry @ 4600 Route 60 Gerry NY 14740
For One More Day by Mitch Albom
“Every family is a ghost story…”
Mitch Albom mesmerized readers around the world with his number one New York Times bestsellers, The Five People You Meet in Heaven and Tuesdays with Morrie. Now he returns with a beautiful, haunting novel about the family we love and the chances we miss.
For One More Day is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that covers a lifetime and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one?
As a child, Charley “Chick” Benetto was told by his father, “You can be a mama’s boy or a daddy’s boy, but you can’t be both.” So he chooses his father, only to see the man disappear when Charley is on the verge of adolescence.
Decades later, Charley is a broken man. His life has been crumbled by alcohol and regret. He loses his job. He leaves his family. He hits bottom after discovering his only daughter has shut him out of her wedding. And he decides to take his own life.
He makes a midnight ride to his small hometown, with plans to do himself in. But upon failing even to do that, he staggers back to his old house, only to make an astonishing discovery. His mother, who died eight years earlier, is still living there, and welcomes him home as if nothing ever happened..
What follows is the one “ordinary” day so many of us yearn for, a chance to make good with a lost parent, to explain the family secrets, and to seek forgiveness. Somewhere between this life and the next, Charley learns the astonishing things he never knew about his mother and her sacrifices. And he tries, with her tender guidance, to put the crumbled pieces of his life back together.
Through Albom’s inspiring characters and masterful storytelling, readers will newly appreciate those whom they love and may have thought they’d lost in their own lives. For One More Day is a book for anyone in a family, and will be cherished by Albom’s millions of fans worldwide.
Copies are available through the library system.
No registration is required. Open to the public.

Book Club @ The Homestead
2026-01-16 15:00 - 16:00 | Sinclairville Free Library @ 15 Main Street, Sinclairville NY 14782
The Christmas Promise by Richard Paul Evans
This holiday season, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Noel Collection returns with another heartwarming story of secrets, heartbreak, forgiveness, and the true meaning of Christmas.
On the night of her high school graduation, Richelle Bach’s father gives her and her identical twin sister, Michelle, matching opal necklaces. “These opals look identical,” he tells them, “but the fire inside each is completely unique—just like the two of you.”
Indeed, the two sisters couldn’t be more different, and their paths diverge as they embark on adulthood. Years pass, until—at their father’s behest—they both come home for Christmas. What happens then forever damages their relationship, and Richelle vows never to see or speak to her sister again. In their father’s last days, he asks Richelle to forgive Michelle, a deathbed promise she never fulfills as her twin is killed in an accident.
Now, painfully alone and broken, caring for the sickest of children in a hospital PICU, Richelle has one last dream: to be an author. The plot of her book, The Prodigal Daughter , is a story based on her sister’s life. It’s not until she meets Justin Ek, a man who harbors his own loss, that a secret promise is revealed, and Richelle learns that the story she’s writing is not about her sister, but about herself.
Copies are available through the library system.
No registration is required. Open to the public.

Book Club @ The Homestead
2026-02-20 15:00 - 16:00 | Bergquist Library at the Homestead in Gerry @ 4600 Route 60 Gerry NY 14740
Devil’s Food Cake Murder (#14 Hannah Swensen series) by Joanne Fluke
These days, everyone in Lake Eden, Minnesota, is buzzing with activity, and Hannah Swensen is no exception. But no matter how busy she may be, Hannah can always find time to help a friend in need–especially when he’s been murdered. . .
Hannah Swensen has to admit that her life is pretty sweet. Things are going well in the romance department, and her bakery’s delectable confections are selling almost as fast as she can bake them. Even her good friend Claire is on Cloud Nine, head over heels with her new husband, Reverend Bob Knudson. If only they could find time to take their honeymoon!
When Bob’s childhood friend, Matthew Walters, comes to town, it seems like divine intervention. Matthew, like Bob, is a Lutheran minister with a stubborn sweet tooth. Since he’s on sabbatical, Matthew is happy to fill in for Bob while he and Claire take that long-awaited honeymoon. It sounds like the perfect plan–until Hannah finds Matthew in the rectory, face-down in a plate full of Devil’s Food Cake, a single bullet in his head.
Determined to find out who killed Matthew, Hannah starts asking questions–and discovers that the good Reverend wasn’t quite the saintly fellow he appeared to be. But could the gold Sacagawea coins in Sunday’s collection plate hold the key to solving the crime? Or is the murder connected to that big jewel heist out in Minneapolis? Is it possible that Matthew’s love of chocolate somehow led to his downfall? It will take some more digging to find out, but Hannah is sure of one thing: even the most half-baked murder plot can be oh so deadly. . .
Copies are available through the library system.
No registration is required. Open to the public.
