Trial to Glory--Revived!
Trail to Glory was my first published book. Though I am known for writing mysteries, this is an historical family saga based on the genealogy of my mother's ancestors.
My sister did all the genealogy research and presented everyone in the family with a booklet with all the data she'd discovered. Back then, there was no Ancestor.com or any other such Internet resources--in fact, not Internet at all.
While reading her research, so many questions popped up. I wondered why people moved from one place to another, what happened to those who seemed to disappear. Of course, over the years, we'd heard lots of family stories: about a twin girl who disappeared in her teens, never to be found, her brother who in his grown-up years became a gambler, though nothing more was shared.
I decided to try and figure out what actually happened to all these people. To do this I researched the places and time periods these people lived. Of course, I didn't find out the answers, but I did learn enough to come up with some great fictional ideas. Who knows? Maybe there was more truth than fiction is some of my stories.
In the book, as time draws closer to the years when some of the people were still living, I was able to hear some first-hand accounts. One of my nephews interviewed by grandfather and his notes gave me some much needed information. And of course, there were all the family stores and anecdotes.
My main purpose, though, in writing this book was to show how brave these people were under some very trying circumstances.
One again, I must thank my friends Lorna and Larry Collins who were determined to bring this book back to life. It wouldn't have happened without a tremendous amount of work from both of them.
Trail to Glory is available for Kindle and also as a trade paperback.
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