This book follows the Carrolls from Ireland to Virginia. On Sir Richard Greenville's fourth voyage in 1587 to the colony of Virginia, he left (Denice) Dennis Carrell and Darbie Glaven on shore to procure the necessary supplies. Other early Carrolls to Virginia John Kerill in 1623/1624 and Christopher Carnoll (Carroll) in 1634/1635. In 1635 Henry Carrell (age 16) disembarked on Virginia's shores as did Elizabeth Carrill in 1638. .
On September 6, 1949, the author was a bride and clueless as to the twists and turns her life would take as the wife of a US Army officer. Her husband served sixteen months at the end of WWII and completed his three-year obligation in the reserve forces. Meantime, he tried to complete college and enlisted in the Oklahoma National Guard while at the University of Oklahoma. The Guard unit was recalled to service with the 45th Division at the outbreak of the Korean War. Elizabeth was ill-prepared for the kind of life she would experience as a military wife, the frequent moves from pillar to post while rearing four children, the separations from her husband, and parting from her friends and making new ones. Without a support system, she learned that military wives depended on each other. It wasn't an easy life, but it offered many exciting adventures and presented friendships in many places. Her children adapted well to the nomadic lifestyle, despite transferring from school to school in midterm. Would she have made the commitment had she known what it entailed? She would have because it was a life of wonderful adventures shared with her husband, her children, their dog, and many, many friends.
It is 1932, and racial prejudice is common in Deer Point, Arkansas, where the lives of two women-a white school teacher and an African American sharecropper-are destined to become forever entwined. As Allise DeWitt gives birth to her first child, her husband, Quent, rapes eighteen-year-old African American Maizee Colson on their cotton farm. Fearing that Quent will terrorize her forever, Maizee's parents take her to Texas, where, nine months later, she gives birth to a son whom she names Nathaniel. As Allise and Quent settle into life as new parents, she cannot shake the feeling that something is wedging its way between them. Financial troubles brought on by the Great Depression plague Quent, and he is forced to send his farmhands packing. Driven by the need to help and to do the right thing, Allise heads up a church project to donate clothing and other items to the sharecroppers. Years later, Quent is killed while fighting in World War ll, and Allise finds happiness in a second marriage to Dro McClure. Allise's charitable journey continues, however, leading her through peril and prejudice and eventually bringing her to uncover a shocking truth that will change her life forever. In this historical novel, an independent Quaker school marm attempts to overcome racial inequity in her small community, inextricably intertwining her life with an unlikely friend who proves that peace is attainable even in the darkest of times.
