I write southern historical fiction and local history. The two novels I'm writing are set in Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1760s. My weekly blog is about my journey as a writer and a reader.
I considered writing about the Jamestown, Virginia Colony today on the 417th anniversary of its establishment, but I just could not muster enough interest in it this week to do the research necessary to blog about it. (You can thank me now or you can thank me later.)
I am taking the easy way out with my blog this week. Instead of researching the Jamestown Colony or waxing poetic about a book I’ve read, I have chosen to share with you some of the beauty of spring in my own yard.
Spring is by far my favorite season of the year because it follows the “dreaded winter.”
Camellia
Camellia and Honey Bee
Daffodils
George Tabor Azalea
Bearded Iris
Dutch Iris
Rhododendron
What’s not to love?
Until my next blog post
I hope you enjoy the gifts of spring or whatever season it is where you live. (I am well-aware that several of my readers live in Australia, and I don’t envy you of your transition into cold weather.)
I hope you have at least one good book to read this week.
As you will see from three of the four books I read last month, I chose to concentrate on my writing and historical research in April. Some of the following books might not pique your interest as a reader, but… you never know. I’ll start with the book that falls in a different category.
One Petal at a Time, by Joni Karen Caggiano
One Petal at a Time, by Joni Karen Caggiano
This is a book of poetry and prose written from the depths of pain and abuse. The writer bares her soul in her words earned from years of abuse by two alcoholic parents and further abuse from a male relative. It is difficult to read. I cannot identify with the horrors she writes about. I had a good life as a child and teen, and naively assumed everyone else lived in a calm, comfortable home with loving parents.
The silver lining in Ms. Caggiano’s book is that she eventually found love and has, as an adult, established a loving home for her own family. Others who have or are living in an abusive situation should find hope in Part 3 of this book and be inspired by her example, her statement of faith in God, and the fear that is no longer in her life. She is a retired nurse, a survivor, and an environmental advocate.
The book cover and interior are masterfully illustrated with the exquisite art of Francisco Bravo Cabrera, who is also known as Bodo Vespaciano. Through black line art he captures the essence of Ms. Caggiano’s words.
Historic Shallow Ford in Yadkin Valley: Crossroads Between East and West, by Marcia D. Phillips
Historic Shallow Ford in Yadkin Valley: Crossroads Between East and West, by Marcia D. Phillips
The Shallow Ford on the Yadkin River in North Carolina plays a role in the historical novel I’m writing, so imagine my excitement when I discovered this book. It was published in 2022 by The History Press.
The Shallow Ford was a natural crossing of the river and was used by thousands of pioneers traveling on the Great Wagon Road and by armies during the American Revolution and the American Civil War. It was, no doubt, used by native Americans for thousands of years before the era of European settlement.
If you are interested in how the piedmont section of North Carolina was settled, then this book is for you. It mentions the various roads and how roads sprang up from the Great Wagon Road to lead to other parts of the state and adjoining states for commerce.
I was most interested in the first sixty percent of the book for its research value for my writing; however, the entire book gives a detailed look at the settlement, cultural development, and industrial development of the Yadkin Valley, which is more of less the area of present-day Davie, Yadkin, and Rowan counties for the purposes of this book.
The Yadkin River is one of the major rivers in North Carolina. It drains the area from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the northwestern part of the state, through the lower piedmont – including where I live. At its confluence with the Uwharrie River it becomes the Pee Dee River, which is fed by the Rocky River and the Lumber River as it eventually flows into the Atlantic Ocean at Georgetown, South Carolina.
Written by “the keeper of the treasures in the Martin-Wall History Room at the Davie County Public Library,” the book is well-documented. In her work, Marcia D. Phillips had access to a wealth of local history sources as well as having the advantages of living in the area about which she wrote.
This book was a God-send for my research of the Shallow Ford of the Yadkin River.
In the Hollow of Your Hand: Slave Lullabies, collected and sung by Alice McGill, pictures by Michael Cummings; musical accompaniment on enclosed CD by Nancy Krebs
In the Hollow of Your Hand: Slave Lullabies, collected by Alice McGill
This is a juvenile picture book that I happened upon at the public library in Charlotte while looking for documented American slavery songs as a part of my research for the historical novels I am writing.
Although it is classified as a Juvenile book, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The fact that it includes a musical CD with the author giving some narrative and singing the songs that have been passed down through the generations of her North Carolina family is the icing on the cake!
The book and CD include thirteen lullabies endemic to the families of slaves. Each lullaby is beautifully illustrated in the African-American tradition by the artwork of Michael Cummings. The banjo having its roots in the Africans who were brought to the American colonies and states as slaves, it is fitting that Nancy Krebs accompanies Alice McGill’s singing by playing the banjo.
There is pain, sorrow, familial separation, the threat of being sold to another slaveholder, and even death in these lullabies. If not for writers like Alice McGill, these wonderful nuggets from American history would be lost forever.
Painting the Past: A Guide for Writing Historical Fiction, by Meredith Allard.
Painting the Past: A Guide for Writing Historical Fiction, by Meredith Allard
My sister happened upon this book at the public library and brought it to my attention. It is a good book for someone beginning their journey as a writer of historical fiction and, at the same time, is a good book to remind a veteran historical fiction writer of why they do what they do.
Each chapter is introduced by a quote from a writer. I copied most of those quotes so I’ll have them as reminders when I question what I’m attempting to do as a writer.
The book talks about the joys and challenges faced by historical fiction writers, as well as our responsibilities. It addresses what constitutes historical fiction and how much leeway a writer has in sticking to the truth. A writer of historical fiction should always disclose what is fiction and what is fact.
The author talks about the importance of using trusted sources and how just because something is presented as a fact in a nonfiction book does not mean it is true. (That reminded me of something Sharyn McCrumb said in a speech I heard her make in Wilkes County, North Carolina many years ago. She said something like – and I must paraphrase here — some historical fiction is better-researched than some history books.)
The book addresses what historical fiction has in common with general fiction and how it differs. Lovers of historical fiction expect certain things in the novels they read, and it is incumbent upon the author to meet those expectations. If they don’t deliver, they lose all credibility.
I’ll close with a couple of quotes the author shared in her book. She quotes Guy Vanderhaeghe as follows: “History tells us what people do; historical fiction helps us imagine how they felt.”
And she quotes Isabel Allende as follows: “People have this nostalgic idea that the past was better, but the truth is most folks had very hard lives.”
Until my next blog post
I hope you always have a book that you can’t wait to get back to reading.
When I started Janet’s Writing Blog more than a decade ago, I didn’t know what I was doing. I had not read many blogs, but I thought I was ready to jump in and write my own after being prompted by my niece’s husband. Craig is much more tech savvy than I. He designed my website as it served me well for 20 years. His interests, time, and business responsibilities changed over the years, so in January 2023 my website was redesigned by Carolina Custom Designs.
My blog floundered for several years in the beginning as I tried to find my niche. I played around with how often to blog and how long a blog post should be. Things have gone more smoothly since I settled on posting every Monday.
Photo by Kaitlyn Baker on Unsplash
I have slowly realized the potential my blog. In fact, I know I haven’t yet fully understood its potential.
It astounds me that people all over the world read my blog! In January 2024, for example, people in 36 countries read my blog.
I’m fortunate to live in the United States of America where I have freedom of speech and freedom to read anything I want.
I don’t want to run out of subject matter. I usually plan my blog post topics as much as a year in advance, but this year my editorial calendar just isn’t coming together like it has in the past.
Should I make some changes in my blog?
Last year was a busy year of getting my website redesigned; starting a newsletter in March; offering a free downloadable copy of my short story, “Slip Sliding Away” to everyone who subscribes to my newsletter; publishing a local history book, Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2; publishing my first ghost story, “Ghost of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse: An American Revolutionary War Ghost Story”; and, with my sister, Marie, published a cookbook, The Aunts in the Kitchen: Southern Family Recipes.
With all I had going on, I failed to keep expanding my editorial calendar. Having Covid in December, a health scare of a different nature at the same time which lapped over into January, and intermittent internet and telephone service for two weeks after a January 9 storm, I was in a mental fog until the first week in March. I do have the next four weekly blog posts planned and partially written; however, some weeks in the rest of 2024 need to be fleshed out.
More than 1,100 “follow” my blog, but most of them probably don’t read it every week. I try to keep in mind that although I have some loyal readers every week, there is always the chance (and hope!) that this will be the week when someone reads my blog for the first time. What can I write this week that will please my regular readers but also grab the attention of a first-time reader so much that they become a subscriber?
I don’t want to bore my loyal readers with references to my books, short stories, and website; however, I want that new reader to be aware of what I’ve written. It is a delicate balancing act.
What Ryan Lanz says a blogger should do
A list I keep in front of me as I plan my blog topics is Ryan Lanz’s “22 Ways to Impress a First-Time Blog Reader With Any Post.” Lanz sets the bar high! I don’t have Mr. Lanz’s permission to quote his list, but I’ll throw out several items on the list to give you an idea of what a blogger is challenged to do with every post:
“Tell them something they don’t know.”
“Tell them something they DO know.”
“Help them solve a problem.”
It only gets more challenging as you read the other 19 items on his list! The one that always trips me up is number 3. I have a feeling in my more than 13 years of blogging, I have probably never solved anyone’s problem! I just don’t see that as my responsibility.
My plan
The first months in a calendar year tend to prompt us into new beginnings and reflection. That’s what I will continue to do over the coming weeks, and I hope I’ll find enough topics of interest to keep blogging every Monday for the foreseeable future.
Stay tuned. Next week I will blog about the books I read in April.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read.
If you are a blogger, you can probably identify with today’s post.
Don’t forget the people of Ukraine.
Remember to subscribe to my e-newsletter before the May issue if you want to learn about an on-going archaeological dig in North Carolina! Just visit https://www.janetmorrisonbooks.com and click on “Subscribe.” My thank-you gift to you is a downloadable copy of my historical short story, “Slip Sliding Away.”
I am working my way through How to Write The Short Story, by Jack M. Bickham. As the title indicates, it is a book I expect to enhance my short story writing skills. However, the first 14 pages surprised me by offering self-inventory guidelines that I think anyone – not just writers – can benefit from practicing.
Mr. Bickham was the author of 75 novels and a host of books about the craft of writing.
It would not be fair to the current owner of Mr. Bickham’s copyright to the book for me to list all 10 steps in his guidelines for self-evaluation, but I’ll try to hit enough high spots to pique your interest even if you aren’t a writer.
Since I thought I could read this 200-page book in several days, imagine my surprise when I spent that amount of time working my way through the first 14 pages!
The root premise of How to Write The Short Story is that writers cannot write to their best form without knowing what they are passionate about deep down inside. The book systematically walks the reader through Mr. Bickham’s theory of how to do a thorough self-evaluation.
The secondary premise of the book is that once writers seriously go through this exercise and the remaining recommended steps in the book, they will be able to draw on their responses to write any story.
Mr. Bickham recommends jotting down on index cards (the book was published in 1994 when personal computers were still in their infancy) the reader’s responses to the series of questions he provides. He wants this information to be written in a form that can be accessed occasionally to remind yourself what makes you tick. Your responses might be added to or deleted as you live your life.
Mr. Bickham also strongly recommends that you not move on to the next step until you have completed the prior step. Even so, I don’t think I should take the liberty of listing all 10 steps. From the five steps I’m listing, you will get the jest of the exercise and perhaps be interested enough to look for the book.
Photo by Simone Secci on Unsplash
Step 1
The first step in this self-evaluation is to write down 10 “things or ideas or places or actions that you feel very deeply about.” You might want to stop reading this blog post and do this step. You need to take your time and really think about what you feel deeply about. You might easily think of three to five things, but then it can take some thought to come up with the other five to seven ideas or places or actions. If taken seriously, this should prompt you to identify your core values.
Step 3
What are five ideas or concept in which you deeply believe? This is different from Step 1, but there will probably be some overlap.
Step 8
Write a paragraph about an event that brought you great sadness.
Step 9
Describe “a time and place that made you very angry.”
Step 10
Write about “a time and place that frightened you.”
I found this exercise helpful, did you?
If you are like me, it has been a long time – if ever – that you took the time to honestly address the above questions and requests.
Did you discover any surprises?
Since my last blog post
I have added several thousand words to the manuscript for The Heirloom after finding some historical information that was helpful and specific to the story. It was rewarding to put words on the page.
I visited Hart Square Village in Vale, North Carolina once again. I took a lot of pictures, learned about the composition of daubing used by the early settlers in the Catawba Valley, and learned about the best practices there today for the preservation of 200-year-old log structures. Again… useful for me to know as a writer of southern colonial American history.
Until my next blog post
Get back to that book you started reading but put aside.
As promised in my April 1, 2024 blog post, Three of the Six Books I Read in March 2024, today I’m blogging about the other books I read last month. I received some comments of interest two weeks ago, and I hope you will also find some books you want to read today.
The Caretaker, by Ron Rash
The Caretaker, by Ron Rash
I have read most of Ron Rash’s novels. Some I liked more than others. This one is my favorite.
The Caretaker is shorter than his other novels at 252 pages. It takes place during the Korean War and is an examination of family and friendship in the small Blue Ridge Mountain town of Blowing Rock, North Carolina.
Having attended college at Appalachian State University just eight miles up the mountain from Blowing Rock, I was familiar with the place names and surnames Rash used in the book. For example, references to the Brown Mountain Lights brought back a fond memory I have of the time I got to see that natural phenomenon for myself many years ago.
In The Caretaker, Rash weaves a gripping story of the things people are capable of doing in the name of love for family. Jacob is drafted and sent to Korea where he almost gets killed. His desire to get home to his wife and their unborn child gives him the fortitude to try to beat the odds and not die from the injuries he sustained.
Jacob leaves his good friend, Blackburn, the caretaker of the church and cemetery, to look out for his wife while he is deployed.
The story Rash weaves about what Jacob’s conniving parents do in the name of loving him while he is in Korea will make you gasp! You will keep turning the pages to see just how this bizarre turn of events will end.
I really enjoyed this book, and I hope you will check it out.
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, by David Grann
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, by David Grann
This book was voted by readers on Goodreads.com as being the “Best History & Biography” in 2023. Many of you have probably read Killers of the Flower Moon, also by David Grann, or perhaps you saw the movie adaptation. David Grann is a master at writing creative nonfiction – nonfiction that reads much like fiction.
I listened to The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder on CD. The story kept me reaching for the next disc as soon as I finished listening to another one. The audio reading was done by Dion Graham. Mr. Graham did a spectacular job of reading this book for the recording. The written words and the verbal inflections of the voice made for a memorable listening.
The Wager was the name of a British ship. In 1740 it left England as part of a squadron on a secret mission to chase a Spanish ship laden with treasure around Cape Horn and hunt down Spanish interests in the Pacific.
Rounding the cape was thrillingly and shockingly illustrated by tales of the vengeance of the meeting of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans at the tip of South America; however, the stories the captain and crew had heard paled in comparison to the baptizing they received at the hands of the ocean’s fury. When The Wager wrecks ff the coast of Patagonia, the reader thinks all is lost, but that is just the beginning of the story.
As the subtitle indicates, there is also mutiny and murder as the survivors of the shipwreck become desperate. There are twists and turns to the story resembling a modern-day thriller. Each survivor had his own description of what had transpired in the end. And did I mention there was a court-martial.?
Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have bought the movie rights to the book.
Change Your Brain Every Day, by Daniel G. Amen, MD
Change Your Brain Every Day, by Daniel G. Amen, MD
After catching a few minutes of Dr. Daniel G. Amen’s program on PBS, I checked the public library for his book. I want to give my brain a chance at being healthy. I would like to say I’m giving it “every chance” to be healthy, but I do indulge in an occasional salty or sugary snack.
After reading Dr. Amen’s book, though, I do feel more inspired to work on this. The essence of the book is that we can make little changes or small practices in our daily lives that are good for our brains. Of course, most of us slip up even when we have good intentions.
I won’t steal Dr. Amen’s thunder by telling you his specific recommendations. The book is made up of 366 daily steps to better brain health you can take, theoretically, over a year’s time. Being a book I borrowed from the public library, I could not take a year to read it. I’m not sure I have the discipline to do that. I took notes on the things that struck a chord with me… and there were many!
Over the coming weeks and months, I will try to take some of Dr. Amen’s recommendations to heart and take better care of my brain. The book is an interesting read. Dr. Amen does not just throw out suggestions; he explains from a medical viewpoint exactly what he bases those recommendations on. In concise, understandable terms, he tells you how the different systems in the body work and how your brain health effects and is affected by those various connections.
In this era, when we are bombarded by written and verbal media telling us things we ought to know and things we really shouldn’t be concerned about, Dr. Amen tells us how to calm the noise as much as possible and be assertive and kind in how we treat ourselves, others, and specifically how we treat our brains.
If you desire to have a healthy brain, I recommend this book. If nothing else, it will make you more aware as you make decisions regarding what you eat, drink, listen to, and breathe. Every little bit of effort helps.
Reading the book prompted me to start playing my dulcimer every day after not touching it for maybe a year. I’m knitting again, too. It is surprising some of the things we can do that make new connections in the brain.
Until my next blog post
I hope you are reading a book that is so good you can hardly put it down.
It looks like I won’t have as many novels as usual to blog about in May. I have neglected some of the books I needed to read for research, so I changed my focus this month to support the fiction I am writing. April is already half over, and I don’t have a very long reading list to show for it. We’ll all find out together on May 6 how many books I read in April.
Speaking of reading… be sure to let me know what you’re reading so I can mention it (and you!) in my May e-newsletter. We all learn from each other.
In today’s blog post, I am revisiting my blog post from April 8, 2016. I had been asked to share 10 random facts about myself. It is interesting exactly eight years later to reread that post and see that little has changed.
Here are the 10 random facts about myself as I offered them eight years ago today, with new insights and details added within brackets:
1. I have what is called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) in the United States but is known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) in the rest of the world. My energy and stamina are limited, and my memory problems and mental fog make my research and writing tedious and time consuming. I often feel as if I live in a vat of molasses. Nothing comes easily.
2. I started working on the manuscript of my proposed historical novel, The Doubloon/The Spanish Coin, in 2005. I am still tweaking it. [I was startled to be reminded that I started writing The Doubloon/The Spanish Coin 19 years ago! After editing that manuscript down from 120,000 to 96,600 words, I am now concentrating on turning the main character’s backstory into a novel to publish before I publish The Doubloon/The Spanish Coin. The tentative title of that novel is The Heirloom.]
3. As a young adult, I was a “fiction snob.” I thought there was nothing to learn or gain by reading fiction. You can imagine how shocked my sister was when, at the age of 48 in 2001, I told her that I had registered for a fiction writing class! That’s when I started learning to write [and truly appreciate and enjoy reading] fiction.
4. Although my appearance, manner, and personality give the impression that I am conservative, I am a liberal when it comes to politics.
5. After wanting to play the Appalachian lap dulcimer since first being introduced to the instrument as a college freshman, I finally purchased one and attended a four-day dulcimer workshop in 2010. Due to random fact #1, I still don’t play well and probably never will; however, I do play for my own enjoyment. I often listen to dulcimer music while I write. (I’m listening to some as I write this blog post.) [I still don’t play the dulcimer very well, but I am once again trying to practice almost every day. This is for my own enjoyment. A huge “plus” is that learning to play a musical instrument is supposed to be good for one’s brain.]
6. I live on land that has been in my family since the 1760s.
7. I sleep in a bed that my father made using timber from our land in the 1940s.
8. I wish I could sing.
9. I could drive a tractor before I was old enough to drive a car.
10. Taking the fiction writing course and attending the dulcimer workshop were life-changing experiences for me, and I will forever be grateful that I got out of my comfort zone and took advantage of both opportunities.
No matter your age, stretch yourself and follow your dreams.
What do you have to lose?
Since my last blog post
Photo by Janet Morrison at Joara
I participated in my first archaeological dig! I checked it off my “bucket list,” but I hope it won’t be my last one. If you want to read all about it, please subscribe to my every-other-month e-newsletter by going to https://www.janetmorrisonbooks.com and clicking on the “Subscribe” button. You will also receive my free downloadable historical short story, “Slip Sliding Away.” I will write about the archaeological dig in my May 2024 e-newsletter.
I submitted a 3,575-word contemporary short story to an international short story competition recently. It was the first time I entered a piece of fiction written in first-person to a competition, so I was pleased when I learned that my story was judged to be in the top 10% of submittals. In spite of that “top 10%” label, I opened the critique with some trepidation.
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash
In a nutshell, the critique only had two negative comments: (1) The title (“Someone is Trying to Kill Me”) gave too much away and (2) I wrapped up the protagonist’s dilemma too quickly. The positive comments included, “It’s rare that I tell an author that the story we turned down needs to be significantly longer, because many of our entries drag a very thin, uninteresting idea out for many more pages than it is worth. But I think “Kill” needs to be a lot longer…. Detailed, interesting, step-by-step… this story has ‘detective novel’ written all over it… I’d read that story. It would be far too long for our magazine, but so what? Get it published somewhere else, or publish it yourself on Amazon or he web or something. Finish the story and put it out there.”
What a morale booster!
Until my next blog post
If there is a novel in you that is begging to be written… WRITE IT!
Read a good book or two this week.
Support your local public library and independent bookstore.
The first Monday of the month seems to roll around faster and faster, and it’s time for me to blog about all or some of the books I read the preceding month. Today’s post is about three of the six books I read in March. I plan to blog about the other three on April 15.
I started last month reading an incredible and much-anticipated novel. Would the rest of the books I read in March measure up to the bar set by Kristin Hannah?
Read on to find out.
The Women, by Kristin Hannah
The Women, by Kristin Hannah
I got on the waitlist for this novel as soon as it showed up in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library online catalog. That was months ago. Last time I checked on Friday evening, there were 4,314 people on that waitlist for the 873 copies in multiple formats. It seems to grow longer each day, so I was fortunate to get to read it soon after it was released.
Unless you live under a rock or have absolutely no interest in historical fiction, you probably know that The Women is about the American women who served in the military in-country (Vietnam) during the Vietnam War. That’s all I knew about it until I really got into the 468-page novel.
I don’t recall the last time I was so affected by a novel. Ms. Hannah writes in a way that puts the reader inside the main character, Frankie, a US Army nurse. This book grabbed me by the throat. I felt like I was right there in a US Army hospital or MASH unit during the war. It brought back memories of watching the news reports of the war on TV every night in my teenage and college years. The names of places and battles I had not thought about in decades were suddenly fresh again.
The book starts out to follow this young nurse throughout her tour of duty. I don’t want to give anything away, but I want to share that it also follows her return to the United States. These were the days of a lot of anti-war protests and the Vietnam veterans did not receive a hero’s welcome when they came home. To compound that situation, people repeatedly told Frankie she wasn’t a veteran because “there weren’t any women in Vietnam.”
Frankie went through loss after loss. Every time I thought things were finally going to go well for her, she suffered another setback.
This is an amazingly well-researched and well-written novel. Ms. Hannah’s descriptions of unspeakable combat injuries and the overwhelming number of severely injured soldiers and civilians the doctors and nurses had to deal with will take your breath away.
It seems impossible to me that the 1960s and early 1970s now qualify for historical fiction. It’s the first time I’ve been so taken aback by reading an historical novel set in my lifetime.
I especially recommend this novel to anyone with a romanticized concept of war.
The Children’s Blizzard, by David Laskin
The Children’s Blizzard, by David Laskin
I mentioned this book on my blog on March 11, 2024 (#OnThisDay: The Blizzard of 1888) but saved the details for today. This is a nonfiction book that reads like a novel. I love this kind of creative nonfiction!
The book emphasizes the fact that the temperatures were unseasonably warm on the morning the blizzard hit, so the school children had not worn their heaviest winter clothes. That fact put them at greater risk than on a normal January day.
I will quote a little from the prologue to give you the flavor of David Laskin’s writing style.
“On January 12, 1888, a blizzard broke over the center of the North American continent. Out of nowhere, a soot gray cloud appeared over the northwest horizon. The air grew still for a long, eerie measure, then the sky began to roar and a wall of ice dust blasted the prairie. Every crevice, every gap and orifice instantly filled with shattered crystals, blinding, smothering, suffocating, burying anything exposed to the wind. The cold front raced down the undefended grasslands like a crack unstoppable army. Montana fell before dawn; North Dakota went while farmers were out doing their early morning chores; South Dakota, during morning recess; Nebraska as school clocks rounded toward dismissal. In three minutes, the front subtracted 18 degrees from the air’s temperature…. Before midnight, windchills were down to 40 below zero…. By morning… hundreds of people lay dead…, many of them children who had fled – or been dismissed from – country schools….”
In the early pages of the book, the author explains that many of the people affected by this storm were immigrants from eastern Europe. They had taken advantage of the Homestead Act, which gave each one 160 acres of land in the region in exchange for a small filing fee and a promise to farm their land for five years. This was a recipe for every family to be isolated and children to have to walk miles to the nearest one-room school.
Much to my surprise, there was a national weather service in 1888. It was attached to the US Army. Such things as barometric pressure, wind speed, and temperatures were recorded and tracked, but this storm out-paced the warning system of flags emblazoned with a single black square and the telegraph system. I dare say it was a monstrous storm moving with such speed that it would challenge 2024 technology to sufficiently warn the populous.
The book gives details about specific families and individuals in the early chapters and then moves into how each one was affected by the storm.
The details of how individual school teachers – many of whom were scarcely older than their students – were faced with impossible decisions of whether to keep their students in the school houses where they were at risk of freezing to death or to send the children out to walk home at the risk of freezing to death.
The individual stories Mr. Laskin shares in this book are powerfully written and show us feats of heroism by children and adults alike. It was a mix of quick thinking and sheer luck that saved the ones who survived. Many survivors lost limbs to frostbite. Many who survived hypothermia succumbed to the warming of their bodies after being rescued.
The author weaves in details of how weather systems are created and how they interact with each other, as well as interesting details of the process the human body goes through when subjected to various temperatures that take the body below 95 degrees F.
People whose ancestors lived in the Great Plains states in January 1888 still tell the stories about this storm. It was interviews and family records that enabled Mr. Laskin to include such details in his book.
This is the first book by David Laskin that I have read. I will definitely look for his other books.
The Wisdom of Trees: Mysteries, Magic, and Medicine, by Jane Gifford
The Wisdom of Trees, by Jane Gifford
I happened upon this book at the public library. The title caught my eye. Trees fascinate me. I am intrigued by the different properties each species has. Since I am writing historical fiction set in the backcountry of Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1700s, I need some knowledge of trees and how they were used by pioneers.
My Morrison ancestors worked with trees a lot and were, no doubt, very knowledgeable about which trees were best used for what purpose. My grandfather had a sawmill. My father enjoyed woodworking and made some beautiful furniture.
Unfortunately, I was not interested in the properties of trees until recent years, so I have had to read and take notes about things my ancestors just knew. It was a necessity for pioneers, farmers, sawmillers, and woodworkers to know about trees. At a glance, my father could identify any tree by its leaf or its bark and any piece of lumber by its color, grain, or fragrance.
I have only recently been able to identify an ash tree, and there are many on our property. My newfound interest in ash trees is a result of many of them succumbing to the invasive emerald ash borer that was introduced from its native range in Asia. This is a costly loss to our environment.
Ash trees were so plentiful here 100 years ago that there was a factory in Harrisburg, North Carolina that made baseball bats and spokes for wagon wheels. (I write about that in Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2, which is available from Amazon and at Second Look Books in Harrisburg.)
Back to The Wisdom of Trees: Mysteries, Magic, and Medicine, by Jane Gifford… in the words from page six: “This book celebrates the enormous cultural and medicinal value of the trees most familiar to modern-day Europe from the point of view of our Celtic ancestors.” It goes into some history of the Druids, poets in Ireland, and the basic Celtic tree alphabet. In other words, the book was not what I thought it was going to be. Only a few species of trees were addressed, and some of them are not found in North Carolina.
For the information the book covered, it is probably a good resource. I’m not sure I learned anything that will help me in writing historical fiction set in North Carolina.
Since my last blog post
I attended a book discussion at the public library in Harrisburg. Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi was selected as this year’s “Big Read” by the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA). I have not finished reading the novel, but I thoroughly enjoyed the group discussion. The library branch manager had listened to the book and said the recording was outstanding.
Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi
Until my next blog post
Read a good book or two.
Support your local public library and independent bookstore.
Check with your local public library system to see if it is offering special programming in conjunction with the NEA’s “Big Read.”
On March 4, 2024, I blogged about three of the 5.4 books I read in February. After writing about #OnThisDay anniversary topics the last two Mondays, today I get to tell you about the other 2.4 books I read last month.
Slave Escapes & the Underground Railroad in North Carolina, by Steve M. Miller & J. Timothy Allen
Slave Escapes & the Underground Railroad in North Carolina, by Steve M. Miller & J. Timothy Allen
Most documented history of the Underground Railroad concentrates on how it operated in the northern states. This is understandable, considering the very secret nature of the operation. As you can tell from the title, this book is almost exclusively about the Underground Railroad in North Carolina.
This was an enlightening book, just as I anticipated. Much of it is about the part Quakers in North Carolina played in the so-called Underground Railroad. I knew that there were many Quaker early settlers in the Guilford County section of North Carolina, but I was surprised to learn that there were many Quaker settlers in the northeastern region of the state.
Another thing I learned from reading the book is that some Quakers owned slaves. The denomination gradually changed its attitude about slavery, which necessitated some creativity in how to deal with the matter. Quakers agreed to manumit their slaves in 1774, but some of their heirs refused to do so.
The book references various colonial and state laws enacted regarding slavery in North Carolina since the late 1600s. One of the laws I had never heard of was the Slave Code Act of 1741 which required local sheriffs who held runaway slaves to give descriptive details of those slaves to churches, and the churches “were then obligated to post them in an ‘open and convenient place’ for two months.” [Thank goodness we have separation of church and state now!]
The book talks about how the Great Dismal Swamp in northeastern North Carolina was a haven for runaway slaves and a hell for some area enslaved individuals. The remoteness and dense vegetation in the swamp provided hiding places for escaped slaves to take refuge; however, slave labor was used – at the cost of many slaves’ lives – to building the Dismal Swamp Canal.
Examples of newspaper notices about runaway slaves are included. Although it is assumed that all runaway slaves headed north, this book explains that some headed east in an effort to get on ships to various destinations, some fled to Tennessee, and others tried to make their way to New Orleans to board ships.
Another thing I learned from the book is that the Underground Railroad was used by white people during the Civil War. Quakers, Union sympathizers, and Confederate deserters were known to have used the system.
Summary of Miriam Margolyes’s This Much Is True
Miriam Margolyes is a British actor with an interesting life’s story. Unable to find her memoir, This Much Is True, at the public library, I settled for reading Summary of Miriam Margolyes’s This Much Is True. It was available from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library through Hoopla.
I enjoyed the summary and it satisfied my curiosity about Ms. Margolyes’s life. I must admit that I was not that familiar with her until recently watching a “Lost in Scotland” PBS series. I had no idea how many movies and TV shows she had appeared in until I read this book.
Between Earth and Sky, by Amanda Skenandore
Between Earth and Sky, by Amana Skenandore
This was the February book for Rocky River Readers Book Club in Harrisburg, NC. I read the first 40% of it before I found part of the story line to be implausible. Others in the book club loved it. There was a lot of discussion, especially by two of the members who were all fired up about the story.
I was interested in the beginning because it was about the terrible treatment of the Native American children at a school run by white people in 1889. That is a topic we all need to be educated about. Other library books were begging for my time, though, which gave me an excuse not to finish reading the novel.
From the discussion at the book club meeting, the 60% of the novel I did not get to read apparently contained some interesting dilemmas for the main characters. I do not want to cast aspersions on the book. If you are interested in reading about the way indigenous peoples were treated in the United States in the late 1800s, I recommend this novel.
Since my last blog post
One of my regular blog readers asked me what happened to Clarence Earl Gideon after the Gideon v. Wainwright US Supreme Court ruling I blogged about last week (#OnThisDay: Gideon v. Wainwright). I realized I was remiss in not including that information in that post.
Mr. Gideon appeared in court in Florida for a retrial in August 1963. That time, he had legal counsel and was acquitted by the jury. He was never in trouble with the law again, as far as I could learn. He died of cancer in 1972 at the age of 61.
Thank you, FictionFan, for asking the follow-up question. By the way, if you enjoy reading thoughtful and honest book reviews of a wide range of genres, I recommend you visit https://fictionfanblog.wordpress.com/ to see what she is reading.
Until my next blog post
I hope you are reading a good book.
Remember the people of Ukraine and all the places in the world where innocent people are suffering.
I should have kept my notes from studying the Gideon v. Wainwright US Supreme Court case when I took Constitutional Law as a senior political science major in college. Fifty years later, I remembered the Gideon case as the one that gave individuals charged with a crime in the United States the right to legal counsel, but I was more than a little fuzzy on the details. Hence, today’s post necessitated my doing some research.
Who was Wainwright?
Louie L. Wainwright was the Secretary of Florida Department of Corrections from 1962 to 1967.
Who was Gideon?
Clarence Earl Gideon had an eighth-grade education. He reportedly ran away from home while a middle school student. He was no stranger to the law throughout his life as he was jailed or in prison more than once for committing nonviolent crimes.
So how in the world did his name get attached to a landmark US Supreme Court case in 1963?
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
Earlier charges against Gideon bear no bearing on the Gideon v. Wainwright case. The pertinent background facts in the determination of this case are as follows:
Gideon was charged with breaking and entering with intent to commit a misdemeanor after allegedly breaking into a pool hall in Panama City, Florida in June 1961 with intent to commit a misdemeanor. At that time (I do not know the current Florida laws) that charge constituted a felony. Gideon asked the judge in that case to appoint legal counsel from him because he could not afford an attorney. Florida law only permitted for free legal counsel in capital offense cases at that time.
After the judge was forced under state law to deny Gideon’s request, Gideon represented himself in the trial. Despite doing a commendable job considering his education and background, he was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison.
On the grounds of his constitutional rights having been violated, Gideon filed a petition with the Florida Supreme Court. The state court denied the petition.
Against all odds, Gideon then filed a handwritten petition with the United States Supreme Court and the justices agreed to hear the case. What Gideon was calling into question was the interpretation of the last clause in the Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution.
The Sixth Amendment was ratified with the following wording in 1791 and has never been amended:
“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”
The US Supreme Court agreed to hear Gideon’s case in part to determine if the 1942 Betts v. Brady case should be reconsidered. In Betts v. Brady, the US Supreme Court had ruled that persons charged with a felony in a State Court was not guaranteed legal counsel under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Outcome of Gideon v. Wainwright
The US Supreme Court unanimously overturned the Betts v. Brady decision. The Court found the Court had ignored precedent set by Powell v. Alabama (1932) when it decided Betts v. Brady.
Justice Hugo Lafayette Black wrote the opinion for the Court. In part, he stated that “reason and reflection require us to recognize that in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person hauled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.”
Justice Black went on to say that the ideal of a fair trial cannot be met if a poor defendant is not granted the right of legal counsel.
Therefore, today we have the perseverance of Clarence Earl Gideon and a decision by the US Supreme Court 61 years ago today on March 18, 1963 for the right individuals in the United States have to free legal counsel to defend them in-person in a trial whether it be in a state or federal district case, if they cannot afford to hire an attorney.
Being in the Bill of Rights, the right to a fair trial is fundamental in the United States. This is a right people in such countries as Russia, China, and North Korea cannot imagine.
Remember that when you vote in November.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have at least one good book to read this week.
Don’t forget to visit https://www.janetmorrisonbooks.com to subscribe to my e-newsletter and to read about the books and short stories I have written.
Remember the people of Ukraine, Gaza, and all the other places in the world where innocent people are suffering.
You and I do not have to agree on politics but, at least for now, I am free to state my opinions. I hope you are free to state yours.
I am wearing my historian hat today to write another #OnThisDay blog post. Sometimes I’m quite familiar with the topics covered in my occasional #OnThisDay blog posts, but today’s subject was one I knew nothing about. I need a topic like that to come along once in a while to keep my research juices flowing.
The Blizzard of 1888
I had never heard of the Great Blizzard of 1888 until I stumbled upon it in a reference book that lists events of note for every day of the year. It turns out that the blizzard in March 1888, also known as the Great White Hurricane, was not measured in feet like the snow in the Sierra Nevada ten days ago. However, it was a paralyzing blizzard in the Northeast US and eastern Canada.
Photo by Christian Spuller on unsplash
It was unseasonably mild leading up to the March 1888 blizzard. Temperatures plummeted and it snowed for a day and a half. Many people were stranded at their places of employment. It is said that prisons and hotels were crowded with people seeking shelter from the storm.
Snow depths from 10 to 58 inches accompanied by sustained 45 mile-per-hour winds created 50-foot snow drifts. It took eight days to clear the New York-New Haven rail line at Westport, Connecticut. Telegraph service infrastructure was knocked out in Montreal and from Washington, DC to Boston for days. In fact, the disabling of rail and telegraph lines by that storm prompted authorities in New York City to start working toward moving of some of those services underground.
More than 400 people died as a result of the blizzard, including 100 seamen as more than 200 ships were grounded or wrecked. Immobilized fire stations prevented firefighters from responding to fires. Loss of property to fires alone during the blizzard amounted to $25 million (in 1888 dollars), which is the equivalent of $810 million in 2024.
The Children’s Blizzard of 1888
In researching the Great Blizzard of 1888, I found information about another blizzard that year and a book about it – The Children’s Blizzard, by David Laskin. I read the book and thought it would be interesting to supplement what I had learned about The Blizzard of 1888 with a few details about The Children’s Blizzard.
Photo by Laura Ockel on Unsplash
To my surprise, The Children’s Blizzard, by David Laskin captivated my interest. The stories about the so-called Children’s Blizzard dwarfed the more famous “Blizzard of 1888” in the northeastern states. Granted, the snow drifts in the northeast might have been higher than in the Children’s Blizzard in the Plains states two months earlier, but the sheer brutality and suddenness of the storm in Montana, the Dakota Territory, Nebraska, and Minnesota made the one in the northeast pale in comparison.
The snowstorm on January 12, 1888 in the Plains was called the Children’s Blizzard because so many school children were caught off-guard in their one-room schoolhouses that mild winter day when a monster blizzard roared in at break-neck speed. In today’s meteorological parlance, it would probably be described as a “perfect storm,” as all the forces of nature converged to create a blizzard beyond comprehension.
Photo by Zac Durant on Unsplash
Like the Blizzard of 1888 in the northeastern states and eastern Canada, the Children’s Blizzard was preceded by at least a few hours of mild weather. This lulled people, except for the most seasoned Plains residents, into a false sense of security. Folks across the Plains welcomed a morning when the temperatures did not dictate the wearing of their heaviest winter clothing. Children were glad to have a pleasant morning on which to walk to school.
The state of weather prediction in 1888 did not afford the people enough – and in some cases, not any – warning that within several hours a dramatic drop in temperature and blinding snow would engulf them.
I will write more about The Children’s Blizzard, by David Laskin in my blog post scheduled for the first Monday in April.
Until my next blog post
Never be without a book to read. I hope you are reading one now that you don’t want to put down.
Don’t forget to visit https://www.janetmorrisonbooks.com to subscribe to my e-newsletter and to read about the books and short stories I’ve written.
Remember the people of Ukraine who have been fighting for their lives and democracy for two years now. Can the members of the US Congress not see what Putin is doing?
Remember the innocent people in Gaza who it appears more convincing by the day are the victims of a genocide. I do not condone in any way the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023; however, that event does not warrant the wholesale bombing of millions of innocent people. This war will not lead to peace in the Middle East. It will lead to countless generations of hatred on the part of survivors and the descendants of those who are murdered. And that hatred will be turned against not only Israel but also on the countries that enable Israel.
You and I don’t have to agree on politics but, at least for now, I am free to state my opinions. I hope you are free to state yours.
Janet's Writing Blog 