Lifelong Learning presents "Nashville's Historian" Ridley Wills Oct. 20
Janel Shoun |
Local historian and heir to one of Nashville’s most historic families, Ridley Wills II, author of Yours to Count On: A Biography of Nashville Banker Extraordinaire, Sam M. Fleming, will speak at a half-day symposium, 9 a.m. to noon, Saturday, Oct.20, presented by Lipscomb University’s Lifelong Learning Program.
Wills will present “HERstory – Women In Tennessee History,” a discussion of the lives of Adelicia Acklen, owner of the Belmont Mansion; Sarah Childress Polk, wife of Pres. James K. Polk; and women leaders active in promoting passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, in the Swang Building on the Lipscomb campus, in Green Hills on Granny White Pike.
Cost is $25 to hear one of Nashville’s best-known historians and a descendent of William Gilses Harding, owner of the esteemed Belle Meade Plantation. Wills’ family heritage inspired him to write his first book The History of Belle Meade: Mansion, Plantation and Stud.
“Ridley really is Nashville’s historian. It’s not an official position, but he’s certainly the unofficial historian for the city,” said Alton Kelley, president of Belle Meade Plantation. “He knows the city and works to preserve it, through sharing his knowledge in numerous works and speeches. Everyone should take advantage of that.”
Will’s insatiable interest in local history led him to write Touring Tennessee: A Postcard Panorama, 1898-1955, based on the 14,000 Tennessee postcards he had collected since his youth, as well as several other books on Nashville and Tennessee history.
Will’s family is integrally tied to Nashville in a number of ways, not the least of which is that his family home, built in 1929, became the governor's mansion in 1949 and is currently being restored. In addition, Wills is great grandson of Judge Howell E. Jackson, who was elected a U.S. senator from Tennessee in 1881.
A native Tennessean, Wills won the Tennessee History Book Award in 1991, and has been an adjunct professor of history at Belmont University.
Lipscomb University’s Lifelong Learning program is designed for people of retirement and semi-retirement age who want to expand their knowledge and explore new ideas in an informal, noncompetitive environment.
To register or get more information, contact Patty Dugger at 615.966.5733 or toll-free at 800.333.4358, ext. 5733 or log on to http://lifelonglearning.lipscomb.edu/.