La Salle library to host virtual Boston Tea Party program 250 years later

The La Salle Public Library will virtually host Claire Evans and Debra Dudek for “Steeped in Secrecy: The Boston Tea Party, 250 Years Later” at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 5.

The story of tea has always been infused with intrigue, particularly when it became a flash point for tensions between England and colonial America. During this program, learn about the brewing political problems tea presented in its history, examine the history of the Boston Tea Party’s most famous partiers (and phonies), and trace bona fide participants through lineage societies and historical groups.

Evans is an author, former journalist, attorney and college lecturer who started her love of most things British as she and her mother watched countless Britcoms on PBS. She studied abroad in London and, against the odds, married a Brit she met in Peoria, Illinois. They lived in England for some years.

Her business, Tea with Claire, grew from friends asking for travel advice. Her memoir, “High Tea and the Low Down,” is the true story of what it’s like to marry a witty Englishman and move to Britain.

Dudek is head of Adult and Teen Services at the Fountaindale Public Library District in Bolingbrook. She holds a postgraduate certificate in genealogical, paleographic and heraldic studies from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.

This program is free and open to the public. It will be presented virtually via Zoom. For information, call the library at 815-223-2341. Registration information will be available through the program portal at https://sites.google.com/lasalle.lib.il.us/programportal/upcoming-adult-programs/steeped-in-secrecy.