Decorah Public Library will host a book signing of “Justice Not Just Us: June Kjome and the Making of an Old Lady Activist” Thursday October 14 at 6:30 pm. Kjome and Susan Hessel and Gayda Hollnagel, the book’s co-authors, will be on hand to give a short presentation and reading. Books will be available for purchase after the program.       

“Justice” covers 89-year-old Kjome’s growing up years in Austin, Minnesota; 19-year career as a Lutheran missionary nurse in South Africa; and 20-plus years of advocacy for local and international causes ranging from hunger and poverty to equality for all people, regardless of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.

Susan T. Hessel is a newspaper reporter turned personal historian. She has written more than two dozen histories, memoirs and other books, and is co-author of “A History of La Crosse, Wisconsin, in the Twentieth Century: Reinventing La Crosse Again and Again.” A retired La Crosse Tribune reporter, Gayda Hollnagel is co-author with Hessel of “A History of La Crosse, Wisconsin, in the Twentieth Century: Reinventing La Crosse Again and Again.” Her freelance writing work includes personal histories.