Who is lynne olver

Those who had always marveled at its breadth. Sandy Oliver, a food historian and fellow fan, was stunned by its completeness and simplicity.

The Food Timeline, in all its comprehensive splendor, was indeed the work of an obsessed person: a New Jersey reference librarian named Lynne Olver. Olver launched the site in , two years before Wikipedia debuted, and maintained it, with little additional help, for more than 15 years.

By , it had reached 35 million readers and Olver had personally answered 25, questions from fans who were writing history papers or wondering about the origins of family recipes. Olver populated the pages with well-researched answers to these questions, making a resource so thorough that a full scroll to the bottom of the Food Timeline takes several labored seconds.

In April of , she passed away after a seven-month struggle with leukemia, a tragedy acknowledged briefly at the bottom of the site. As long as you can give me a little bit of context, then I have some direction. There was no pretension about it. What is it that they want to know? A picky eater, she detested lima beans, pistachio ice cream, calamari, slimy textures, and anything that even edged on raw.

Making peas with cheese as a teenager was the beginning of what would become a lifelong interest in food for Olver. There, she was mentored by two older librarians, whom she loved. Olver and her future husband, Gordon, met at Albany State and married the year after Olver graduated, in , after which they worked in Manhattan Lynne at a law library, Gordon in reinsurance , then Connecticut. They eventually had two children — Sarah and Jason — and settled in New Jersey in , where Olver found a job as a reference librarian at the Morris County Public Library, eventually becoming the head of reference, and finally director of the library.

Around the same time, Olver was asked to write a monthly print newsletter to share library news, which she named Eureka! Included in this sizzling section will be answers to arduous questions, practical pointers and many marvelous morsels of information. When the library realized it was taking so much of her time, they asked her to stop. An archived version of the Food Timeline still exists and looks — unsurprisingly — more or less the same as the one now.

While Olver worked at the county library by day, by night she was creating an online resource for anyone who wanted to know more about Johnny Appleseed or chuck wagon stew or the origins of Sauce Robert. Eventually, even the cooking fell behind. She was named a winner of the New York Times Librarian Award in , and, in , Saveur put the Food Timeline on its Saveur list of the best food finds that year.

Sarah and Jason recalled taking their mother to a cooking class at the Institute of Culinary Education in Manhattan during that time period. Where is Lynne Olver? For years, Olver lived something of a double life. While the family was sitting all together in the living room, Olver got up to go to the bathroom; minutes later, she was in the throes of a seizure. Sarah called , and Olver was taken to the hospital.

The wedding had to go on, though Olver was too sick to attend. Doctors diagnosed her with leukemia the next day. Olver was kept in the hospital for two months, but fought hard to be home for Thanksgiving. She referenced this vast collection whenever a reader sent in a question or she decided to research a topic of personal interest. The site, which pre-dates Wikipedia by two years, has largely retained its structure and aesthetic since Olver coded it in With its taupe-colored background and clashing red and blue text, it is visibly antiquated.

Still, no other site comes close to the depth of information compiled in the Food Timeline. By , it had reached 35 million readers, according to Eater ; by March of that year, Olver had personally answered 25, food history questions submitted by fans. The Food Timeline offers tips on how to approach food history research, as well as explanations of how its creator compiled information from primary and secondary sources.

As long as you can give me a little bit of context, then I have some direction. To better understand the recipes she was asked to research, Olver would often cook the foods in question. Sometimes, she solicited help from readers when her own research came up short.

Now, the Olver family is reaching out to food historians and fans to consider taking over the project. The position of website custodian is unpaid but comes with the thousands of books and documents Olver collected.

Combined, these papers are probably worth tens of thousands of dollars, her husband, Gordon, estimates to Eater. The site may look comprehensive on first pass, but there is plenty of room to grow.