Wilmington College to host Frank Levering as Quaker-in-Residence

Acclaimed Quaker author/playwright Frank Levering will spend a week this month at Wilmington College as its winter Quaker-in-Residence. He will interact with students and the campus community, highlighting the theme “Farming as Ministry,” as well as present a pair of evening programs for the greater Wilmington community.

Opening his Jan. 26 through 30 residency will be the screening of the 55-minute documentary, “In June at This Place,” on Jan. 26, at 7 p.m., in the McCoy Room of Kelly Center. The newly restored film originally aired on public television some 50 years ago.

“In June at This Place,” which has been described as a time capsule of rural American life from a half-century ago, paints a vivid portrait of Quaker peace activists Sam and Miriam Levering, parents of the four adult children who appear in the film. Known nationally and even internationally among Quakers and other activists, Sam Levering was a co-founder and longtime leader of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) and, together with Miriam, played a key role in establishing the 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty. 

At the heart of the film is the senior Levering’s activism and lifelong Quaker commitment to fostering world peace. Against that backdrop, “In June at This Place” dramatizes a recurring American story: what will happen to a struggling family farm? Indeed, the film addresses the difficult issue of who, if anyone, will keep this way of life going. That question in American agriculture has become increasingly hard to answer, but some 50 years later, the family orchard is thriving under Frank Levering’s stewardship.

On Jan. 28, a reader’s play by Levering, “The Distance Between Us,” will be presented at 7 p.m. in the Jones Meetinghouse in Boyd Cultural Arts Center. It will feature WC alumnae readers Bekah Wall, assistant professor of communication arts, and Terri Baker Anderson, with alumna Lori Scott providing live music.

This play is set in the early 1800s as an exchange of letters between a Quaker mother in Ohio and her daughter in Virginia, the latter of whom had been disowned for marrying a Baptist. This play delves into issues of Quaker theology and practice, slavery and antislavery, family dynamics and personal struggles. This story is told entirely in letters and spans nearly 20 years in the lives of two remarkable women, one a staunch Quaker forging a life of strong principles, the other a Quaker at heart whose younger son comes to manhood with convictions much like his grandmother’s. 

Can mother and daughter forgive one another, opening the door to a true reunion? Can the daughter, Maiden, come to her mother in Ohio before her aging mother’s death? These questions are in the letters – and are answered in the final drama of the play.

Levering is the author of nine books and 26 plays and has a Hollywood film to his credit. His books include the 1992 bestseller “Simple Living: One Couple’s Search for a Better Life, Moving to a Small Town,” along with “Nothing’s Too Small to Make a Difference”,” Love Mom: Stories from the Life of a Global Activist, Teacher and Mother of Six,” “Welcome to the Country: Things You Need to Know When Moving to Rural Virginia,” “Blue Light: Poems from a Life” and “Fruit Orchard Cookbook: Over Ninety Years of Family Fruit Recipes from Levering Orchard.”

As the owner of Levering Orchard, in the Blue Ridge Mountain town of Ararat, N.C., near the Virginia border, he carries on the truck farming tradition started by his grandparents in 1908. In addition to apples and pears, Levering Orchard features 33 acres of cherry trees with an amazing 59 varieties to choose from. Levering calls it Cherry Mountain, the self-proclaimed “largest and most beautiful cherry orchard in the South, and with the greatest selection of cherries, both sweet and sour.”

Levering has spent decades engaged in environmental activism and promoting climate change awareness. He co-created, wrote, directed and produced the national PBS series Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska, which ran for four seasons from 2004 through 2008. The series, filmed at his family’s orchard, drew 4.5 million regular viewers and was the first continuing series on American television to address environmental issues.
 
In 1986, Levering and Urbanska, his former wife, left careers in Los Angeles — he as a screenwriter, she as a journalist — to return to the family orchard. The couple advocated for a simpler life on television appearances on “Oprah,” “CBS This Morning,” “The Today Show” and NPR’s “All Things Considered.”