Nancy Drew convention draws fans to Cooperstown

Jul. 14—Dozens of fans of the Nancy Drew mystery book series have descended on Cooperstown for a weekend gathering of would-be sleuths and gumshoes devoted to the fictional teenage and amateur sleuth.

Since her inception in 1930 as the female counterpart to the Hardy Boys series by publisher Edward Stratemeyer, Nancy Drew has been dazzling generations of fans with her plucky, bold and independent style.

The Nancy Drew Sleuths fan organization chose Cooperstown for its annual convention, which began Thursday, July 13 and ends Saturday, July 15, to celebrate Nancy Drew book No. 49, "The Secret of Mirror Bay," which was published in 1972 and set in Cooperstown.

The book's ghostwriter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, made a trip to Cooperstown in 1971 to do research for the book. The Nancy Drew books had a number of authors and were published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene.

The convention drew attendees from around the country. Jennifer Fisher, Nancy Drew Sleuths president, organized the series of diverse, interactive events. There was also a mystery for attendees to solve, with clues given during the weekend of events.

Highlights include a Nancy Drew book donation to the Village of Cooperstown Public Library of Nancy Drew books and a presentation by Fisher called "The History Behind the Mystery: The Real Secret of Mirror Bay" at the library 9:30 a.m. Saturday. The library event is free and open to the public.

The other events were for conventioneers and included a lakeside "Sleuth Survivor" competition, a Nancy Drew escape room challenge, a tour of Otsego Lake on the Glimmerglass Queen, a Cooperstown ghost tour and a grand finale mystery dinner event at The Otesaga Resort Hotel.

The convention attracted generations of fans, including Linda Midura, of Traverse City, Michigan, and her daughter Jennifer Holak, of Parsippany, New Jersey.

The mother-daughter pair even sported yellow T-shirts with the phrase "Nancy Drew Nerd."

"I used to like to read Nancy Drew and passed that love on to her," Midura said Friday, as the group of about 50 conventioneers waited to board the Glimmerglass Queen. "I just enjoy meeting people from all over and listening to the stories."

Holak said she not only read the books, but liked to play the computer games, which lead her to the fan group. She said the convention group is made up of mystery, true crime and of course Nancy Drew fans.

Fisher, a resident of Queen Creek, Arizona, said she has some assistance at the conventions, but she plans them on her own from afar.

"Usually I'm never where we have one of these things," she said. "Our mantra is to follow in Nancy Drew's footsteps. We pick locations where the books were set in real life. Not all of them were set in real-life places but we do that so we can follow in her footsteps and do all the local stuff that she did in the books."

Other sites in the Cooperstown-inspired book are the National Baseball Hall of Fame, The Farmers Museum and an old toy museum that's no longer operating but the buildings are still there.

Nancy Drew also visited Natty Bumppo's Cave — taking inspiration from another American fictional character, the protagonist of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales.

"We're having fun," Fisher said.