The Maid and the Socialite Reading

Celebrate Women’s History Month with a book release about two remarkable women involved in two scandals that rocked Green Bay.

At the turn of Green Bay’s nineteenth century, Mary Cenefelt, an illiterate maid, and Mollie Bertles, a college-educated socialite, fell victim to the physical violence and mental abuse of the city’s celebrated surgeon, Dr. John R. Minahan. The physician was the most influential member of his brilliant family that dominated Green Bay’s professional, business, political, and social arenas from 1892 to 1954. Dr. Minahan’s fortune built a stadium, science center, and six-story building–all named for him–while history lost, or perhaps erased, Mary’s and Mollie’s courageous stories. Until now.

We invite you to join us as author Lynda Drews shares how she excavated Mary’s and Mollie’s voices and the Minahan family’s fascinating history from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay archival records to write her newly released book, The Maid and the Socialite: The Brave Women Behind the Scandalous Minahan Trials. You will also meet Door County resident Beverly Hart Branson, who was married to a descendant of Mollie’s best girlfriend and provided photos and documents to enrich the story’s narrative. A powerpoint presentation and readings will be included in the talk and a book signing will be provided at its conclusion.

Lynda Drews is the author of four books, including her Green Bay true crime memoir Run at Destruction: A True Fatal Love Triangle. She and her husband Jim have lived in Green Bay since 1974, eighteen years in the Astor Historic District where The Maid and the Socialite takes place. She and her husband also spend nearly every weekend in Fish Creek at their Half Mile Bridge condo.

Beverly Hart Branson is a Door County artist who was married to Neil Charles (Chuck) Branson many years until his passing in 2013. Chuck was a member of the Warren Comstock family on his maternal side. Beverly loves living in Door County with its endless 360-degree beauty, where she can capture the realistic or abstract beauty in her watercolors and ink drawings. Her work can be found in many private residences around the country and in Spain. She shows her work and it’s currently on exhibit at The Meadows Gallery, Sister Bay. Her notecards can be found at Novel Bay Book Shop, Sturgeon Bay. Beverly enjoyed finding and sharing the many family photos, newspaper clippings, and letters that were about the days and people referenced in Lynda’s book.