Follow the journey of the Johnson family through the ups and downs of a tumultuous and agonizing period of their lives and review with them the lessons they learned when their oldest son, Jared, committed suicide. This is is a story of faith, hope, and renewed love that will uplift and reaffirm the value of human life, including every wayward prodigal anywhere.
This is the story of a depression era orphan, Marie Pead, who grew up in a small town of Fairview in Western Wyoming. She never let the trials of her life hold her down. She had little money and as a young girl had the daily care of her two younger brothers and a younger sister. She still became the belle of the ball. At this time, she owned one hand-me-down dress. Marie was well-liked and popular at the big band dances held in the neighboring town of Afton. Pretty, nice, and spunky, she won the heart of the handsome Spencer Call, a University of Wyoming student who became the chief engineer at the local Call-Air airport and manufacturing company; he could design and build a plane and had a love of the mountains. Marie followed him on many adventures. She loved him distractedly, honoring him as a worthy companion but never lost her grit and spunkiness nor did she ever play second fiddle to anyone. Soon after the war, Spencer left the plane factory to form his own sand and gravel company. Spencer and Marie were a fairy-tale couple who lived in their own Camelot in a home nestled so close to the mountains one could almost touch the peaks. They lived in Camelot but they faced adversity with stoicism. Marie lost a brother in World War II, a son at 18, Spencer when he was 72, and a grandson to suicide. She lived as a widow for 18 years in her own home taking care of herself and never lost her faith in God, her charm, or her love of life. When pursued by other men, even as a widow, she staunchly maintained she was still married to Spencer Call and would be forever. The stories in this book are in Maries own words in the form of letters she wrote and saved which were compiled and edited by her daughter, Pamela Call Johnson.
Why didnt you wait for me? Wesley asked Buttercup. Well, you were dead, she replied. Death cannot stop true love, all it can do is delay it for a while, said Wesley. I will never doubt again. There will never be a need, replied Wesley. Included in this book are thoughts similar to those quoted by Wesley in the popular movie, The Princess Bride, and others experienced in the ways of the heart with excerpts from the love letters of the authors parents and over ?fty original poems by the author resulting in a touching expression of faith in traditional romance. True love, indeed, lasts forever. Find its old-fashioned nuances revealed anew with fresh insight in these pages.
Ellen Ann Fentress is a veteran writer for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She’s also a seasoned southern woman, specifically a white Mississippi one. “Women do a lot for free, no matter the era, no matter the location,” she observes in The Steps We Take: A Memoir of Southern Reckoning. As a good southern woman, Fentress felt a calling to help others. As a teenager, she volunteered as a March of Dimes quarter collector and sang hymns at a soup-and-salvation homeless shelter. Later, she married, reared two daughters, renovated a 1941 Colonial home, practiced her French, and served as the bookkeeper for her husband’s business. She followed the scripts she was handed by society. But there were the convenient lies and silences that she and most southern—make that American—white women have settled on in the name of convention and, to be honest, inertia. For Fentress, her dodges both behind her front door and beyond became impossible to miss. Eventually, along with claiming a personal second act at midlife, she realized the most urgent community work she could do was to spur truth-telling about the history she knew well and participated in. She was one of the nearly one million students in the South enrolled in all-white “segregation academies,” a sweeping movement away from public education that continues to warp the Deep South today. To document and engage with this history, she founded the Admissions Project: Racism and the Possible in Southern Schools, which has been featured in the Washington Post, Slate, Forbes and other publications. The Steps We Take tells how one woman reckons with both a region’s history and her own past. Through a lens ranging from intimate to the widely human, through moments painful and darkly comic, Fentress casts a penetrating light on what it means to be a white southern woman today.
As nightfall descended on Saigon, Vietnam, the Dao family joined the masses huddled on the floor of a military cargo plane for an immediate evacuation. The year was 1975. The Vietnam War was coming to a bitter end, and just about everybody was desperate to get out of the country. Nearly two months and two refugee camps later, the Dao family finally arrived in Coffeyville, Kansas where they put down roots for a new life in the Heartland of America. From that day on, the discoveries were many as were the triumphs and travails. From sampling the breakfast staple of cereal and milk to learning the English language to surviving the rancor of war-induced, family strife, Home Away From Home is a hobbling walk down the memory lane of a life that has languished yet thrived in America.
Eva Galuska and the Christmas Carp is a magical Christmas story told by Jozef Mieszko about his own life. He is a successful young man who has it alla beautiful golden-haired wife, two young sons who worship him, a rewarding career, and a home with great equitya fairytale, castle-like brownstone on Chicagos trendy Gold Coast. Jozefs parents, first generation Polish immigrants, achieved the American dream with sacrifice, tenacity, and hard work, and they own and operate an Old World-style Polish bakery and delicatessen. Their store is located in the heart of Bucktown, an old Polish neighborhood near St. Marys of the Angels Catholic Church, one of Chicagos actual historical landmarks, known for its spectacular golden dome, its glorious rooftop angels, and its mysterious blue light in the cupola that can be glimpsed from the Kennedy Expressway. Even though Jozef is proud of his family heritage and he enjoys helping his parents at their store, he realizes he is not a people person like his father, and he chooses a career as a computer programmer, rather than pursuing the family businessas his father puts it, Jozef prefers to lose his eyesight to blue-screened electronika. A few days before Christmas, Jozef makes a routine stop at his parents store on his way home from work and he runs into Eva Galuska, a strikingly beautiful, seductive woman, who is a friend of his family. Eva is a talented seamstress who has always seemed breath-taking and mysterious, but after their brief, flirtatious encounter in his fathers store, Jozef finds himself unexpectedly attracted to her and cannot get her out of his mind. This unexpected lust leads Jozef to question many aspects of his life and these confusing thoughts about Eva lead him to one particular childhood memory that haunts him, revealing his own guilt and feelings that he could have somehow prevented it from happening in the first place. For Jozefs family, the holidays represent the most profitable time of the year as well as the traditional Polish religious celebration of the birth of Christ. For Jozef, the glow of Christmas is a magical time, when anything is possiblethe twinkle of lights brighten the world at the darkest time of the year and at the same time, the celebration of Christs birth, is an impetus for spiritual rebirth. Jozef sets out on a journey of self-discovery, sharing his memories, perceptions, personal thoughts, and problems with the reader. He questions the blend of old rituals and superstitions with religion, in an attempt to discover his own beliefs and to resolve old conflicts, still smoldering from the past. His meeting with Eva unlocks a forgotten door in his childhood memories, revealing his uneasiness with a family Christmas Eve tradition and unravels a tangled paradox of hidden secrets among the layers of complex personalities, family traditions, superstitions, and faith. And in spite of his conscious efforts to differ from his father, Jozef finds that he possibly shares a secret with his father, to which he has been oblivious, his entire life. As Christmas Eve approaches, Jozef recognizes the tiny window of opportunity to resolve his personal issues once and for all. Eva Galuska and the Christmas Carp is a celebration of the rich cultural heritage and the languages, the culinary specialties, the folklore and superstitions of Chicagos ethnic communities, particularly focused on Chicagos Polonia. And the fictional story of Jozef Mieszko, intertwined with history and actual landmarks of Chicagos magnificent landscapes, reveals a contemporary, yet tangled plot, that could happen to any familyin America or elsewhere. This story at Christmastime is sheds light on Eastern European holiday traditions still practiced today, but also open the door for Jozefs spiritual awakening, and in a sense, his rebirth as he listens to the Black Madonna and follows St. Marys of the Angels mysteriou
When beautiful twenty-seven-year-old photographer Cassandra Reynolds, daughter of a U.S. congressman, meets and marries famed cardiologist Jeffery Gordon, son of a preacher, shes happier than she ever dreamed. She gives birth to a daughter, has a fabulous home, and finallyher own business. But Jeffs new promotion, long hours at work and the reemergence of his ex-girlfriend, Angela, make Cassie a lonely, angry and unhappy housewife. Though they love each other dearly, Jeff fears their frequent quarrels and her depressing loneliness might drive her into the arms of another man. Will it be Philippe Curat, the Haitian artist/photographer with the sexy French accent, or to bad boy Jonathan Hunter, a billionaire with more money than he can spend in a lifetime? And will Cassie discover the many secrets Jeff has hidden? While just a few miles away...filthy rich, lethally attractive, Jonathan Hunter, a twice widowed, bored womanizerwith a passion for strong liquor, danger and romanceis seeking a caregiver for his young son and a special woman to fill up his grieving heart and empty life. He believes the lovely Cassie is just what he needs. Can he convince her to share more with him than friendship? And can he protect her from her husbands enemies and the people who want him dead? This romantic thrillerset primarily in the Chicago areatakes us to Paris, Las Vegas, Houston, Canada, Australia, Scotland and more. Jam-packed with roller-coaster excitement, it explodes from start to finish as Cassie struggles to find answers and solutions. Will she escape Jeffs enemies? Who fathered her unborn child? And will the marriage survive? What happens during Lunch with Cassie can happen to many of us. And the steamy, sexual aura and bittersweet love story at its centermake it a real page-turner!
