WFHM Book Club: Pious Ambitions featuring a Conversation with Author Mary Tribble

Join museum staff for our Summer 2022 book club meeting. This summer, we are reading Pious Ambitions: Sally Merriam Wait’s Mission South. Author Mary Tribble will join us for our conversation. A light dinner donated by Wegmans will be served. Registration is limited. See below for details.

About the Museum’s Book Club

The museum’s book club meetings include a casual discussion with museum staff and neighbors about a work of historical fiction or nonfiction. Books typically explore local and regional history or exhibit themes. There is no obligation to participate in every book discussion. We encourage you to register for the book club meetings that most interest you. It is okay if you haven’t finished the book by the time we meet.

About the Book

A previously untold story of a nineteenth-century woman determined to make her mark on the world, Pious Ambitions reveals the remarkable life of Sarah (Sally) Merriam Wait, from a young Vermont woman struggling with faith to an aspiring missionary and minister’s wife. Sally’s unwavering mission to save souls plunged her into the power center of the Baptist denomination in Washington, D.C., and ultimately, despite her anti-slavery family’s admonitions, pulled her to the backroads of North Carolina to assist her husband in establishing what is now Wake Forest University.

Sally Wait’s journal was passed down carefully from generation to generation until it found its way in 1993 to the Special Collections and Archives at Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, along with a large cache of letters and other documents. In examining this trove and reconstructing the life of Wait, Mary Tribble provides a rare glimpse into the spiritual education of a young woman who nevertheless successfully navigated the rise of capitalism in the market economy of the early nineteenth century.

About the Author

Mary Tribble joined Wake Forest University in 2014 as Senior Advisor for Engagement Strategies where she is responsible for creating meaningful experiences for approximately 70,000 members of the alumni family. Tribble graduated from Wake Forest in 1982 with a degree in Art History and completed her Master of Arts in Liberal Studies in 2019. A fifth-generation Wake Forester, Tribble wrote her thesis on the untold story of her great-great-great-great grandmother Sarah (“Sally”) Merriam Wait, wife of Wake Forest’s first president Samuel Wait. She also oversees the Wake Forest Historical Museum at the site of the original campus in Wake Forest, N.C., and is a member of the steering committee of the Slavery, Race and Memory Project, an initiative to reexamine the university’s history with regard to slavery and its legacies. Prior to her return to Wake Forest, Tribble owned an event marketing firm in Charlotte for 25 years and earned national and regional recognition including Business Woman of the Year and Entrepreneur of the Year, before helping to plan the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Follow Mary on Twitter and Instagram @marytribble.

How to Get a Copy of the Book

Books can be purchased from Page158 for $25. If you are in the local area, the bookstore can deliver orders of $20 or more to these zip codes: 27587 and 27571. They also offer Curbside Pickup 11 am-6 pm Monday thru Saturday. Books can also be shipped to your home.

You can also purchase a copy of the book through the Museum. Please email Sarah Soleim (soleims@wfu.edu) if you would like assistance acquiring the book. Depending on book demand, we may be able to negotiate a discounted rate.

If you would like to participate but cannot afford to purchase a copy of the book, please also let us know.