History, Real Life, and Faith
“I saw a photo once,” my 91-year-old grandmother said, “of three girls in an oval frame. They had red tinted hair and were very pretty. That’s the only picture of Permelia I ever saw.” My great-grandmother, Permelia Hanks Dunn Duval is a cypher. Born shortly after the Civil War to a 58-year-old CSA colonel and his second, exhausted, wife, she moved through…
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As we walked through the graveyard dusk of a late July some 17 years ago, the dead came alive to me. There as the sun lowered to the horizon and the birds settled to bed, Uncle Ernest told stories at grave after grave. I was writing the story of my grandmother’s life that year and this visit was to fill in the…
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Digging up the seed root of bitterness–how to.
Is it unusual in your world to see a woman wearing a cross around her neck? Standing in line to tour the Hungarian Parliament building in Budapest, I got into a lengthy discussion of recent history with my sister-in-law’s cousin, Attila (“the Hun,” as he likes to say). The conversation in English had become quite animated when I noticed the…
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Checking out of life with Kristin Lavrandotter
How to know when you finished researching and it’s time to write?