Finally, my writer bio

Janine Fallon Mower
Local History and Family Lore Consultant

Historians have written that the nineteen sixties was a time when the United States was in turmoil and countless numbers of people were searching for deeper meaning in their lives. The dawning of the Age of Aquarius was expected to occur and PEACE would be the theme for the world. Janine Fallon – Mower, today known as a local history author and family lore consultant, was just one of those seekers, standing high on a windswept hill on the coast of northern Maine in August of 1968. It was there that she took the first step of a journey that would deepen her knowledge of her birth families and the community that she grew up in, Woodstock, NY. Genealogy remains her main passion. She finds connecting generations of families, whose knowledge of each other has often been lost through the passage of time, to be a satisfying process.
Janine spent 10 years researching and interviewing her family members on her paternal side. Learning about the city of Kingston in the 19th century, as it grew to accommodate Irish, Italian and German immigrants, Janine developed a story about three generations of the Heaney and Fallon families. The work resulted in a self published family memoir in 1998, “From the Midlands West to the Rondout Docks”
She began a more formal role in the research and promotion of local history when she served on the Woodstock BiCentennial committee in 1987. Subsequently, she began a relationship with the Woodstock Historical Society that lasted for almost 10 years. She served as co president of the Historical Society for five years, and during that time instituted a program referred to as Historical Road trips. Volunteers, lead by Janine Fallon – Mower would bring artifacts, photos, and paper ephemera from the Historical Society Collection to the outlying hamlets of Woodstock. Local residents attended what are recalled as lively and informative local history discussions at the neighborhood fire houses.
During her tenure with the Historical Society, Janine had the opportunity to interview local residents and, listen to their stories of Woodstock during the early twentieth century, from their personal perspective. Along with anecdotes about daily life, Janine was allowed to peer into the more intimate areas of Woodstock life by reviewing local family pictures. This experience led to the publishing of two books with ARCADIA PUBLISHING in the Images of America series, “ Woodstock” in 2002 and “Woodstock Revisited” in 2005.
Janine has led a number of local history discussions/ slide shows for the Woodstock Library Forum and the Woodstock Senior Citizen Group.
Most recently, Janine was invited by story teller Mary Savage to present a program on genealogy research and local storytelling for the Brooklyn Community Storytellers at Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture in Brooklyn NY. While in Brooklyn, a new research door opened for Janine. The cycle continues.

On a more personal note;


Janine believes that “family genealogy and local history research compliment each other like apple pie and ice cream, Desi and Lucille, night and day. The careful process of researching a family tree reveals a picture of how a family group interacts within a small town or an urban neighborhood. An image that comes to mind when researching multiple families in a geographic area is the image of a simmering pot of stew. With the addition of each ingredient (family member) the stew (family) becomes more flavorful and varied. The same can be said for each local community or urban neighborhood.”
According to Janine Fallon Mower, “it is imperative that we continue the work of capturing the memories of our older family members and community residents. Time moves forward, our memories grow dim, and we risk losing the wisdom held in the events of the past. As many have said before, culturally and socially, we benefit by the experiences of those who have walked before us. Our elders can guide us to find deeper meaning in our lives.”