Speaker: Tamara Carter  “Drelspitz: Families and Immigration and the Great Depression”

T offers lectures/trunk shows and workshops through her business, History Outside the Box; “Quilts revealing history from many perspectives, including those of women, ordinary people, people of color and others whose voices have yet to be heard and whose stories remain untold.”  T is also a published author—A Memoir of Injustice by the younger brother of James Earl Ray, as told to Tamara Carter. She serves as president of the Indigenous Nations Alumni Alliance, George Mason University; and former co-president and co-vice president of the Mt. Vernon chapter of Quilters Unlimited.

Through fabric, T Carter tells the story of her family’s immigration to the United States from Dreispitz, Russia. In German, Dreispitz means three points. The name derives from the location of the village of Dreispitz, Russia, which was nestled into a triangular bend in the Volga River. When they moved to Mountain Lake, Minnesota, they also settled in a triangular-shaped community. She explores genealogy/ancestry through documents, photographs and oral histories, and reminisces life during the Great Depression on the Minnesota prairie, circa 1901 – 1950. Her research reveals raw history, while at the same time, celebrates a rich cultural heritage of hard work, survival, laughter and love.