I never met Sister Mildred Barker, but I feel like I knew her all the same. After my first internship at the Shaker Press, before my trip back south, Brother Arnold gave me a cassette tape called Early Shaker Spirituals. It was a recording of Sister Mildred released by Smithsonian Folkways and Rounder Records in 1977. I listened to that cassette over and over again as I drove from Maine back to grad school in Alabama... so much so, that I did come to feel like I knew Sister Mildred. I know her voice so well, that lovely Maine accent, and I've seen photos and films... and when I read this history that she penned of the Sabbathday Day Lake Shaker Community, I can hear her reading it in my head. It's a wonderful single-signature pamphlet, filled with Sister Mildred's history with black and white photos of the village.

This second edition was published by the Shaker Press (where I interned as a grad student in letterpress printing) and is a trade edition book (not handmade, not letterpress... but a fine book all the same), staple bound, softcover. 29 pages, 1985.