Cherrie Beam-Clarke Brings a Pioneer's Story to Life
by Melissa Wakeley
December 26, 2009
On December 15th, Cherrie Beam-Clarke came to Lyons-Decatur School to present herself as Mariah Monahan, a Nebraska settler between the years of 1845 and 1870.
She entertained Third through eighth graders and staff members by using an Irish brogue and dressing in period costume. Beam-Clarke has based her presentation on historical facts beginning with a trip across the ocean, a ride on the wagon trail, feeling loneliness, raising a family, planting crops, hard work, prairie fires, grasshopper infestations, losing loved ones and becoming an American.
