GUEST GOLDIE BROWNING ON DR. NORMAN BAKER - 1882-1958



Goldie Browning, Author

 Throughout history, people have yearned for a quick, painless cure-all for what ails them—and the quacks keep coming to meet those needs. During the 1800’s travelling medicine men were a common sight on the western frontier, selling tonics and elixirs with staggering alcohol content and salves that professed to cure just about everything. Even in this century, magazine ads and television infomercials make astonishing health claims that would infuriate your family doctor if you tried them.

Dr Norman Baker



In the early Twentieth Century, however, the modern technology of radio communication was still in its infancy and didn’t become widely accessed by the common people until just before the Great Depression. This was a time of hopelessness and despair. What better time to fleece the masses of what little money they had left? Like the booming, disembodied voice of the mysterious wizard in The Wizard of Oz, the voice over the radio held authority. Dozens of "radio doctors" began to descend on the airwaves.

One of them was a man named Norman Baker. He was born in Muscatine, Iowa in 1882, the youngest of nine. Precocious. Restless. A little man with a huge ego. Leaving school at an early age, he went to work in a button factory as a machinist. He soon invented an automatic button machine, but lacked the financial means to develop it. Disappointed, he changed direction and became a mentalist in a Vaudeville show, travelling the country performing a hypnotism and mind reading act. Finally, he struck it rich when he invented something called a Calliaphone, which is basically a calliope that runs by air, rather than steam.

But Baker wasn’t satisfied with his Calliaphone business. He decided to become a doctor. But he didn’t go to medical school. He simply opened up his own hospital in Muscatine, hiring doctors who held degrees, some of them questionable. He called it the Baker Institute and he claimed to have the cure for cancer. People began lining up to see Dr. Baker. As a side note, one of the "doctors" who worked for him in Iowa was named Harry Hoxsey, who learned his medical skills from his father, a veterinary surgeon. He later moved to Dallas and started his own, very famous cancer cure business, which is still operating from Mexico and on the Internet to this day!

In order to keep the beds full at his hospital, Baker needed a way to advertise. So he built his own radio station. KTNT. Its call letters were a double entendre—a suggestion that his messages packed the punch of dynamite, as well as the acronym for "know the naked truth." He used this platform to preach his own brand of logic, which usually differed from the mainstream. Like an early Twentieth Century Don Quixote tilting at windmills, Baker feuded with the American Medical Association, calling it the "Medical Trust" and likening it to an octopus that monopolized the way medicine was practiced. He always felt that he was being persecuted.

It may be hard to believe in this day of television, videos, and Internet, but people in the 1920’s and 30’s actually travelled long distances to "see" Norman Baker’s radio performances. On holidays and summer Sundays, crowds that numbered in the thousands would gather to hear Baker’s radio talks and watch his troop of comedians and musicians. He even provided a restaurant, souvenir shop, and a gas station.

But one day he went too far. Before a crowd of 32,000 people who had gathered at KTNT, he performed a demonstration on a man named Mandus Johnson, who supposedly had cancer on the top of his head. The amazed crowd watched as a surgeon removed the top layer of Mr. Johnson’s scalp and skull to show how Dr. Baker had cured the man of cancer, after only three treatments with his concoction of spring water, watermelon seed, and carbolic acid. After this stunt, the authorities shut down his radio station and Baker fled to Nuevo Laredo in Mexico to avoid arrest and to build an even more powerful, unregulated radio station just across the border.

When the authorities managed to shut down his hospital in Iowa, Baker purchased the derelict Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas in about 1936 and moved his patients there. Baker called it his "Castle in the Sky." He reportedly boasted to his employees that he would "make a million dollars out of the suckers of the state" and in a mass mailing of over three million pamphlets sent nationwide, he advertised that he had a new paradise for cancer sufferers. The Grand Old Lady of the Ozarks, as the once-majestic hotel had been called, was now the Baker Cancer Hospital.

Norman Baker had an affinity for the color lavender. His trademark outfit was a white suit, with a lavender tie and purple suspenders. He even drove a lavender Cord convertible. When he remodeled the Crescent Hotel, he put purple blinds on the windows and painted the walls purple. He decked out the pillars and woodwork in bright red, yellow, and orange. He tore out the lovely old balconies and replaced them with concrete verandas to accommodate hospital beds so patients could "take the air."

Later on, rumors abounded that Baker would take advantage of patients without families nearby. That he would get them to sign letters in advance to administrators of their estates asking for extra money, when in truth, the patient might already have died. Sometimes, it was rumored, a person might sign over their entire estate to Baker to pay for their treatment. His advertisements "guaranteed" cures without operation, radium, or x-rays, but his treatments consisted of phony concoctions that didn’t actually harm the patients, but did nothing to cure their disease. People were dying in large numbers. But he also catered to hypochondriacs, diagnosing just about anybody who came to him with cancer. Their successful discharges greatly increased his "cure" statistics.

After an aborted raid by authorities on Baker’s radio station in Iowa in which dynamite and gunfire were involved, he became more and more paranoid. He set up his Arkansas office just down the hall from the main lobby, but he erected a bulletproof panel to protect himself. Two machine guns hung within easy reach, and he had trapdoors and a tunnel built in case he needed to make his escape. But his preparations were all in vain.

Within three years, Baker and some of his employees were indicted by the federal court. He was tried and convicted of mail fraud in 1940. Interestingly, his chief counsel, who was named A. George Bush, appealed the conviction on the grounds that the jurors in the case had been drunk. Baker was sentenced to four years in the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas and was fined four thousand dollars. He served three of those years and then bought a three-story yacht, where he lived out his days off the coast of Florida. Ironically, he died in 1958 of liver cancer. His former colleague, Harry Hoxsey, mentioned earlier, also died of cancer in 1974.

Available at Amazon and Smashwords

The Crescent Hotel has been fully renovated and is now a beautiful resort and venue for weddings and parties. But Dr. Baker’s legacy lives on in the nightly ghost tours that relate the legends and ghost sightings, and take you down into the bowels of the old hotel—to Dr. Baker’s morgue. You’ll hear the stories about how he and his doctors purportedly experimented on the bodies of patients who had died and then burned them in the incinerator—about how he locked away the ones who had gone insane in the padded walls of the annex asylum—about how years later, human skeletons were found in the walls and jars of human organs were found in a locked, secret room. None of these stories have been proven…but you can’t help wondering.

That’s how I came to write NIGHT JOURNEY. After taking the ghost tour, after hearing the stories about Dr. Baker and the other ghosts, and after having some uncanny experiences in the room where I stayed—Theodora’s room—I was inspired to write my novel. Reviewers have called it a "good old-fashioned ghost story where the ghosts help the romance in the past so the loving couple can be in the present" and "The Notebook meets The Shining."

NIGHT JOURNEY can be found on Amazon, Smashwords, or in the gift shop at the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.



GETTING TO KNOW JEANMARIE HAMILTON

Jeanmarie Hamilton

aka Clare Adele

By the age of six years, I knew I wanted to write stories. My inspiration at that age came from nap-time stories my Texas grandmother often told us kids about her life growing up in Texas, as well as the children’s stories she made up. My mother’s afternoon reading to us also inspired me. She read all the Wizard of Oz books to us, as well as all the Raggedy Ann books. There were other fantasy stories she read to us that had to do with the adventures of human children and fairies. The illustrations were beautiful and as important to me as the printed page.

My school teachers inspired and encouraged me to write. My fourth grade teacher read the Black Stallion books to us while we rested after lunch at school. She inspired me to write horse stories. I entered a grade school writing contest and came in second in the finals. That was great encouragement. My mom has kept that story all these years. J My dad wrote a local newspaper gardening column that was put into a book form. I was so proud of him. In high school I wrote a dark poem about a man and woman. My sophomore English teacher gave me an A, and commented that the tone was very grown up, or something like that. I’ve always found my strongest writing to flow at night. Good thing, since I’ve always been a night owl.

My daughter kept me so busy that I didn’t have enough time to write when she was little. I painted and sketched instead. Being a lover of horses, I could never get enough of them, so I sketched and painted photos of horses. With my daughter and then the family garden center keeping me busy until she graduated from college, I tried to write, but never finished the books I started. I may yet. Those characters intrigued me.

When Wal Mart and Home Depot, etc., moved into town, our family garden center had to close. We hated to shut the doors, and still miss our customers. Holidays and decorations and flowers were the most fun times.

Meanwhile, my mom suggested we write a romance. I wanted to write a western so I could have horses in the story, and Mom wanted to write a time-travel. We compromised and incorporated both ideas into our story. It is a good story, but that was before I had honed my writing technique. We finally put it aside after many rejections from publishers.

I wanted to write another western without the paranormal elements, and my mom decided to go back to her oil painting classes which she had to give up while we had the garden center. Today, she’s an accomplished landscape artist.

I found my passion for writing historical romance, and it’s been a wonderful roller coaster ride, sometimes threatening my sanity and most often saving it and bringing me great friends.

My mom would love for me to take time off from writing to paint with her. Along with my mom, I’ve studied with Earline Barnes, as well as the books and dvds of another favorite artist, Kevin Macpherson. I’ve found that there are so many similarities between writing and oil painting. When I need a break I dabble a while in oils. But after a short while, a character is nagging at me to write a story. So back I go to the blank page, waiting for my characters to tell me their stories and inspire me.

I love to write and will keep writing with the encouragement of my readers and friends. I’ve enjoyed writing western historical romance. I know I have another one waiting to be told. My first western historical took me on a wild ride in the American Title II contest. SEDUCTION has since been published. ARE YOU GOING TO THE DANCE? followed in an EPIC Award placing anthology, NORTHERN ROSES AND SOUTHERN BELLES, published by Wild Rose Press. Next came DANGEROUS PERSUASION, an erotic western historical romance published by Siren BookStrand with my new writing name, Claire Adele.

I’ve also discovered the fun of writing werewolf western historical and contemporary romances. MOONLIGHT DESPERADO, writing as Jenette DuPris, was my first werewolf novella. I’ve since written the first in the series Wolves of West Texas, GUARDIAN OF HER HEART, a contemporary werewolf novella. GUARDIAN OF HIS SOUL is the second in the series, under my Claire Adele name, and it will be out soon. J

I’ve enjoyed a great adventure writing my stories. I hope you’ll find enjoyment reading them.

Wishing you inspiration and a wonderful story,
Jeanmarie Hamilton
Aka/ Claire Adele

GUARDIAN OF HER HEART, out now at Siren Bookstrand

Coming soon, GUARDIAN OF HIS SOUL.

RAIN SLICKERS AND GUM BLANKETS - STAYING DRY IN THE OLD WEST

LOST HEARTS- Blurb

The Lawman—Haunted by flashbacks he can’t remember, from a war he wants desperately to forget, U.S. Deputy Marshal Richard Bennick arrives in Indian Territory carrying warrants for the notorious outlaw Peirpont Bodine and his feisty, irreverent son, Johnny.

The Outlaw—Trapped in a life of violence and abuse, Johnny Bodine lives in fear of men. Disguising her femininity, she retreats into her imagination and dreams of a family who loves her.

Together—Forced to trust each other as they journey through the dangerous Choctaw Nation, a unique bond of love forms between outlaw and lawman that can only be broken by Richard’s oath to uphold the law and the justice of the hangman’s noose.

Excerpt-Steady rain woke everyone well before sunrise. Rain ponchos of India rubber were thrown on and plates of cold beans passed around for breakfast.
Miserable without rain gear of her own, Johnny stood at the end of the chuck wagon, beneath an
open-sided, water proofed canvas tent, washing the breakfast dishes while the cook packed up the camp. The tension that had twisted her stomach muscles into a knot when the one-armed deputy rode out last night, eased when she saw him ride up alongside the wagon.
Beyond the circle of lantern light, he was nothing more than a black silhouette against a backdrop of dark gray sky. He dismounted, leaving his horse ground tied, then grabbed one of the lanterns hanging from a pole and strode past her on his way to the front of the wagon. It tipped to the left when he climbed inside.

A moment later, the large, burly man who’d been hired to drive the prison wagon, brushed by. "Don’t I get a gun?" he asked from outside the wagon.

"I thought you drove a prison wagon before," the deputy snapped as his silhouette bent and shifted behind the canvas.
"Sure, I rode a few posses an’ such, but I always had me a weapon."
There was a slam, hollow and solid, like the lid on a wooden box. The wagon lurched again. The deputy swung his legs over the seat and jumped to the ground. "The driver for the prison wagon never carries. It’s too dangerous."
The glow from the lanterns reflected off his black poncho and rain dripped from the brim of his dark hat. The low light deepened the circles which underscored his red rimmed eyes. She doubted the man’s surly mood would improve during the day.

"Come on, Deputy, can’t I even have me a little pig sticker tucked in my boot for comfort?"

"No. You were told no weapons. That’s the rule."
"Can’t ya bend the rules? That Bodine’s a dangerous man."
"Look, Hobbs, is it? I don’t bend rules for anyone. Ever. And because Bodine is dangerous is precisely the reason you are not to carry a weapon."
"I guarantee the only way Bodine will get it is to kill me first."
"Then he’ll still have it won’t he?"
"But—"
"No weapons. You don’t like it, get your gear and get the hell out of here." The deputy swung around and slammed into Johnny. "What do you want?" His broad hand clamped onto her shoulder, then he spun her around, and shoved her toward the back of the prison wagon where Brady had the other prisoners lined up.

Author Kathy Otten at book signing event

Thanks to Kathy Otten for being in our guest spot today. You can find out more about Kathy at http://www.kathyotten.com/

 

When I wrote my novel Lost Hearts, I knew there would be a scene where the deputy marshals had to ford a swollen river. For this to happen I needed it to rain, but I didn’t like the idea of my deputy wearing a mustard-yellow rain slicker. So I researched this indispensable item tied behind every cowboy’s saddle.

The Fish

Developed in November of 1881 by Abner J. Tower, the Fish Brand Pommel Slicker cost about 3.50 and yes, it came in a more hero worthy black color. However, the black slickers were unpopular because they became stiff in cold weather from the paint added to the linseed oil. Many westerners also found that black slickers spooked the horses easier than the yellow.

The Fish, as they were commonly called, came down to the ankles and had a long, wide skirt with a slit and gores in the back to also cover the horse and saddle. It closed with a fly-front and big metal buttons with the word, "Tower" on them. The collar was lined with red flannel. The early slickers had no pockets. Later, two side-pockets were added with slit openings inside so the cowboy could reach his pants.

To keep them wind and waterproof, cowboys painted them with linseed oil. Slickers became, "stiff as rawhide," in winter and got very sticky in hot weather. They had to withstand much abuse and on occasion they were used to beat out grass fires.

Cowboy Wearing The Fish Pommel Slicker

When not being worn they were rolled inside out and tied behind the cantle of the saddle. However the Fish became so popular most cowboys didn’t own coats. With a couple of wool shirts and a vest underneath, a rider could stay warm in most weather. But if it was damp a man could freeze to death at a higher temperature in a slicker than wearing any other garment.

The Fish was so popular the design has hardly changed over the past one hundred and thirty years.

I was very happy with this information and gave my hero a black slicker, knowing his horse was too smart to be afraid of it.

LOST HEARTS made it to the first round of edits when my editor questioned whether my color choice was accurate. Because I’m always worried about making an error I can’t change, I went back to double check my facts.

Confederate Prisoners at Gettysberg

1863, each with gum blanket roll

Yes, black was an original color, but Abner J. Tower didn’t invent his Fish Brand Pommel Slicker until 1881 and my story took place in 1877. Doggone it, how could I have missed that? But I did miss it and had to go back and change all my slicker references to the black Civil War gum blanket.

The gum blanket was made of 100% cotton canvas with a vulcanized black rubber coating, a process patented by Charles Goodyear in 1844.

Gum Blanket

The gum blanket was used as a ground cloth to protect the soldier from the dew while sleeping and with brass grommets around the edge, it could also be used as a make shift pup tent. It was used for protection from the cold and when used to for protection from the rain, it would keep the soldier dry from about the knee up.

While foot soldiers were issued a gum blanket, cavalry troops received a poncho, which was the same thing except with a neck opening and a stand-up collar. They were both call a Gum or Gum Blanket.

All about me

By Anna Kathryn Lanier

Like some of my other bloggers, I don’t think my life is very interesting, but I know other people think differently.  I know some people who have never driven further than 50 miles from where they were born.  People ask me where I’m from.  Well….my father was in the Air Force. I’m from all over.  I’ve lived in eight states, three of them twice, one U. S. Territory and a foreign country. Here are my wanderings:  I was born in Kansas and at 18 months, I moved to California, where we moved a couple of times to different towns.  My earliest memories are from there, the first true memories included (not what family said, or what the home movies showed).  When I was six, we moved to Guam for two years, then to North Carolina.  From there, we went to Texas. Dad retired from the Air Force while at Carswell AFB in Ft. Worth. Then we followed my mom’s career as a restaurant manager and went to New Mexico, first Las Cruces (where I graduated high school) and then to Albuquerque.  Oh, wait, it was between my junior and senior year that I went to Finland as an exchange student.  Okay, so after graduating high school when I came back from Finland, I moved to Albuquerque, got married and moved to Colorado, where I had my first daughter; then we all moved back to New Mexico before going to Louisiana. 

(Jim and me)

In Louisiana, my husband did the best thing he could ever do for me….he left me for his pregnant girlfriend.  A few months later, I met a man who had just moved into my apartment complex. Less than a year later, Jim and I were married and moving to West Virginia.  There I had another daughter.  I lived six years in Charleston, the longest I’d lived in one house my whole life.  We then moved back to Louisiana and lived there, in the same house, for eight years. My husband was transferred to Houston, Texas and we’ve been here for 10 years….officially the longest I’ve lived anywhere.  We’ve been married for over 24 years, too.

(Me and my two daughters, Tiffany and Holly)

It was while living in Albuquerque for the second time that I wrote my first romance novels, long-hand in spiral notebooks.  When in Louisiana for the first time (right after my husband left me), I submitted my first book to Harlequin.  Since I knew nothing of synopsis, agents, or even writing, it was rejected outright!  No surprise there, knowing what I know now!  While in West Virginia and back in Louisiana, I didn’t really write, I was busy with my two girls, church and Girl Scouts (I was a leader for 13 years).

It wasn’t until moving to Texas ten years ago that I got serious about writing again.  I wrote two novels in 6 months and, though they suck, they did get me back into the writing mode.  I took a Creative Writing Class at the local community college and learned that I knew NOTHING about writing—I mean, double spacing, one-inch margins AND you don’t justify?  I also learned about local writing groups and Romance Writers of America.  It was a few years afterward that I was published.  I now have several short stories and novellas out there, but no full-length novel.

(I love this picture of the grandkids, Emma, Lacey and Ethan)

(At my mother's 70th Birthday Party...all dressed up)

My two girls grew up, as kids will do and married (and divorced), but I have 3 grandchildren, Ethan, Emma and Lacey.  One daughter remarried and she, her new, better husband and Lacey live with my husband and me. (My family seems to do better the second time around….I don’t know why that is).

In 2005, I decided to finally go to college. I went to the same community college I’d taken the creative writing classes and enrolled.  In 2007, at the age of 47, I got an Associate of Arts degree in Education/History. I was going to go on and get the full Bachelor’s degree, but life got in the way, namely in the name of said grandchildren.  Instead, I’ve started substitute teaching.  I’m enjoying that, since I don’t have deal with parents, lesson planning or administration. (Though I did get called to the principal’s office once, because I left a teacher a ‘goodie bag’ with information about my books….)

My first romances were contemporaries, then I wrote two historicals, one set in America in the 1780’s and one in Texas in the 1840’s….none of them are publishable.  I worked on another historical (full-length), and some short stories, most of those contemporary.   As said, the shorts are published, the full-length is being revised, with hopes of FINALLY being publishable!

I have a blog that I keep fairly active with recipes, guest bloggers, reading suggestions and odds and ends, http://annakathrynlanier.blogspot.com/ and my website, with info on my stories, is at www.annakathrynlanier.com.

So, there’s my life, mostly.  Plain and ordinary, except for the voices in my head!

Who I am

I agreed to write about me for the August blog, but didn't realize how hard it would be. I've lived a fairly uneventful life.

Born in San Jose, California, my dad moved us to NE Oregon when I was two. There had been a rape in the park next to our house and having grown up in the rural areas of Texas and Nebraska he didn’t want us to live in fear.

We arrived in Wallowa Valley an isolated county rimmed by mountains. It's beautiful and has been called "Little Switzerland". There is one road in from La Grande, OR and if you aren't faint of heart one road out to Lewiston, Idaho. My daughter took my mother-in-law on this road when her older sister was in college in Wyoming. My daughter said she found it hard to drive with her grandmother in her lap. The road is very narrow and clings to the side of the cliffs with a sheer drop.

Growing up I spent my days doing chores on our 200 acres, riding my horse, reading along the river, and swimming in the river. It was an ideal setting to grow up in, but I found the small town gossip and nosiness wasn't for me.

I headed to college in Klamath Falls, after working my butt off to stay in the program one professor who insisted when I started I should do the three year program graded my lab reports so low I couldn't have passed with a C unless I scored a 99 on the final. I scored 98 and ended up leaving the program all together. It had been my dad's idea for me to be an x-ray technician and not mine. I wanted to go to an art school.

A high school friend had moved to Bend and was looking for a roommate. I moved in with her, learned she'd changed considerably when "men" showed up at the duplex at all hours of the night and she'd dress up and go out.

I met my husband at an Under 21 club. A girl I worked with talked me into going with her. I was 19 at the time and all the boys there looked to be 15 & 16. When a male walked in who looked my age, I strolled over to him and asked him to dance. He had laughing eyes, curly blonde hair and muscles. We danced and he said his buddies were supposed to meet him. As the night wore on his friends didn't show and my friend had to leave. My future husband said he could take me home. We walked to his pickup, an old flat black International. He had to unlock the passenger side because the driver's side lock didn't work. He slid through and then I got in. It smelled of cow manure. He was working at a feedlot. At the duplex, he came in and we kissed until he tried to put his hands under my shirt. I told him it was time for him to leave. I figured I'd never see him again. The next night someone knocked on the door. I answered and there stood my husband grinning like a fool and asking if I'd like to go to a movie. He later told me it was my sending him away when he got fresh that impressed him.

We married when we were both twenty-one and within nine months our first daughter was born. We lived in a couple of mouse infested houses as he started his trucking business and added two more biological children. The last one came after we purchased a new house. Later we adopted a boy through children's services.

While we both decided early on in our marriage we didn't want to farm any more, we ended up purchasing a 69 acre piece or property and started raising cattle and hay. Now that the kids are gone and return occasionally with our eight grandchildren we now own 350 acres and raise alfalfa hay as well as the cattle.

During all of this my husband learned I'm not happy unless I'm writing whether for pleasure or for profit. He supports my writing and I support his tractor addiction. ;)

Paty
www.patyjager.net
www.patyjager.blogspot.com

USING REAL LIFE STORIES FOR INSPIRATION

Our guest author is Dr. Debra Holland, author of the sweet western romances WILD MONTANA SKY and STARRY MONTANA SKY. In addition to writing romances, Debra is a professional psychotherapist in Beverly Hills, California and the author of numerous non-fiction books. You can learn more abut her at her http://www.drdebraholland.com/

Here's Debra:

USING REAL LIFE STORIES FOR INSPIRATION

Unlike a lot of people who have written for this blog, I don’t have pioneer ancestors. My mother’s parents came from Germany, and my father’s from Norway. Therefore, Western stories aren’t part of my heritage. However, as an American, growing up in the United States, I absorbed history taught in school, as well as Western television shows, movies, and books. Somehow the rich culture of the West seeped into my blood becoming part of who I am. I’m sure this is true for many Americans.

My German grandmother, Martha, grew up on her father’s estate, and even though she had a governess, she was allowed to run wild, getting herself into plenty of adventures. As a young teen, I was fascinated with her stories, and resolved to write about them when I grew up. Once I’d finished my Ph.D (and spent several years recovering) and was ready to write again, I turned to my grandmother’s stories.

By that time, my grandmother was in her mid eighties, and had forgotten a lot of the details I want for a book. So I just wrote down what she remembered and turned some of her individual escapades into short stories. Along the way of learning to write fiction, I discovered Romance Writers of America, which changed my life because I started to write romance--sweet historical Westerns.

I put children into my stories, and by the second book found my grandmother’s experiences served as rich fodder for the kinds of trouble that children could get into. Even though her escapades had taken place in Germany (about 25 years later then the time of my books) I could easily adapt them to Montana.

In the first story I chose, Martha had been spending the summer at her aunt’s estate. Her older cousin was getting married that day, and Martha was all dressed up. One of the wedding guests was a girl her age, and Martha took her on a tour of the stables. In the back of the barn, were several hay stacks and the girls started jumping on them. (I’m sure it was my grandmother’s idea.)

Martha jumped on one that turned out to be a hill of manure covered with straw. She rapidly sank, and, when she couldn’t immediately free herself, was afraid she might suffocate. Luckily, it only came to her chin, and she was able to escape. Her aunt was enrage when she caught sight of Martha covered in manure, only a little while before the start of the wedding. Martha was popped into a tub, and her aunt welded the scrubbrush so hard, it hurt.

I took my grandmother’s experience and wrote it into the second book. The children played on a haystack, and one of them unknowingly jumped into the manure pile.

Many American children in the 19^th and 20^th centuries grew up fascinated by cowboys and Indians. That interest wasn’t just confined to American children.



Great grandfather's pipes



Another of my grandmother’s escapades that I used happened because she’d been hearing or reading about the Indians in America. She was taken with the idea of passing the peace pipe with one her friends. So she stole her father’s pipe and led the boy behind the barn. She lit the pipe, and they smoked it. Of course they became sick.

My grandmother had plenty of other adventures, some of which I intend to use in future stories. There are others that, unfortunately, I can’t adapt to Montana in the 1890’s—for example running off to see the gypsies to have her fortune told, or climbing onto the roof of the barn to investigate the stork nest built on top of the wagon wheel.

Whether or not I used my grandmother’s stories in my books, encouraging her to tell them to me and writing them down has given me a treasure trove of family history. (She even told me stories that her great-grandmother shared with her.) With my grandmother’s passing, I’ve become the family historian.

I encourage you to record in some manner your family history. You never know what future generations will do with it.

Here's an excerpt from STARRY MONTANA SKY. Let me explain that Mariposa is Jack's horse:　

Jack ran to the nearest haystack, scrambling up its slippery side. There was a trick to the climb, involving shoving the toes and hands deep into the hay. The blades scratched and tickled his hands, and he breathed in the dusty-sweet scent. Ever since he’d arrived here, he’d been wantin’ to jump on these stacks, but he’d always been too busy with school and chores. But they’d been there, beckoning.

The other boys scampered right behind him to the top, then juggled next to him, trying to stay in a bunch. Sara struggled with the climb, hampered by her dress. As she leaned forward, her long brown hair trailed, picking up wispy spikes. He snickered. Soon she’d look like a yeller porcupine. Lizzy settled herself on a hay bale near the barn, seemingly content to watch.

Which first? Leap to the next mound, or skim down like an otter on a mudslide and climb back up again?

Daniel solved the problem for him. Flinging his arms behind, then forward, he dove to the next haystack. Popping to his feet, he balanced on the top, flailing his arms, and laughing.

Jack ground his teeth. I’m first. Not waiting, he bounded across, pushing Daniel aside when he landed. "Out of my way."

Losing his grin, Daniel flopped onto his back. Before he had time to get up, Tim sailed through the air. Jack caught a glimpse of the mischievous look on his brother’s face. Then Tim shoved him, and Jack fell across Daniel’s stomach. With a wuff of expelled air, Daniel’s chest caved.

"Hey." Daniel punched Jack in the side. "Get off me."

With a grin, Jack rolled off.

Tim thrust his arms in the air. "I’m king of the hill."

Jack reached over, hooked Tim’s ankle, and flipped him down. "Ain’t no more."

From the other stack, Mark called, "Make room, or I’m landing on you."

Jack bounced to his feet. Ignoring Daniel, he grasped his brother’s hand, pulling him up. "See if ya can," he called to Mark.

Mark jumped, lunging into Jack. They grappled for position. Daniel’s feet slid over the side, dragging Tim down, but by clinging to Tim’s leg, Daniel managed not to slip off.

In his fall, Tim jerked at Jack’s arm. At the same time, on his other side, Mark pushed at Jack. As he fell, Jack stubbornly clung to Mark’s shoulders, taking him down with him. Laughing, they all lay sprawled over each other like a litter of puppies. Jack felt funny inside, like a lantern had been lit in his chest, and he couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off his face.

He glanced over at the other stack. Sara stood with her hands on her hips. That mule look settled on her face. "My turn."

Jack jostled the other boys aside to get to his feet. "No, ya ain’t. Ain’t no room for girls over here."

With a few pushes, the other boys shuffled to their feet.

"No girls. No girls." Daniel chanted."No girls. No girls." As all the boys joined in, the chorus swelled.

Sara’s face turned as red as his old winter longjohns. She shook her fist at them.

A gang. He and Tim and Daniel and Mark. All together. For the first time ever, Jack felt the power of belonging, of not being on the outside. In a heady rush, he raised his voice even louder. "No girls."

Sara stuck her nose in the air and turned away from them.

Jack laughed, feeling triumphant.

With a swift movement, she gathered up her skirt with one hand, flung her other arm back and forth and hurdled toward the other mound.

Oh, Lordy. Jack opened his mouth to yell a warning, but it was too late. Sara landed feet first on top of the straw-covered manure pile. She twisted to face them and swiftly sank. Her eyes bulged in horror.

Jack couldn’t help the snicker that burst from him. Sara sure looked funny up to her knees in manure, her formerly clean white dress bunching up in the top of the muck.

"Don’t laugh at me!" she screamed.

Jack chortled. He’d never seen anything so hilarious in his life. She was goin’ to stink to high heaven.

"I’m sinking."

She was. Up to her hips. Jack’s amusement sizzled up faster than water sprinkled on a hot skillet, replaced by a bolt of terror. That manure pile was a lot higher than Sara. In a minute, she’d be over her head. She’d drown in shit, and it would be all his fault.

His heart thumping fit to burst, he plummeted down the haystack.

Apparently realizing her danger, Sara screamed--piercing shrieks that normally would have made him clamp his hands over his ears. But instead, he frantically dug his way into the smelly muck.

She sank, already mired to her shoulders. He knew he had only seconds to reach her. As he worked, her body lowered more, her neck covering up. Her eyes bulged with fear, and the screaming changed to whimpers that tore at him with the sharpness of a bear’s claws. On either side of him, the other boys joined him, each burrowing like a dog after a bone.

Sara plunged down farther. She tilted her chin back, straining to keep her face free. The whimpering cut off. Jack knew she didn’t dare move her mouth.

His tunneling hands struck something. Sara’s arm. "I’ve got her!" he yelled. He pulled. The mound refused to release her. He thrust his arm in deeper, his face pressing into her shoulder.

Breathing in the stench, he wiggled his fingers across her back until they curled around her side. Like a draft horse, he pulled. Her body shifted a few inches toward him. His ear pressed to her chest, and he could hear her heart fluttering like a bird caught in a trap. At least she wouldn’t sink any deeper.

"I’ll hold her. You guys dig her out."

Mark scooped dung from around her front; Tim and Daniel tackled her backside. As she loosened, Jack pulled her out a few inches more. Looking up at her face, he saw tears streaking down her sludge-splattered cheeks.

"Got you," he whispered to her. "Won’t let ya go."

She swallowed and gave a slight nod, as if she were afraid to move.

"Be all right." He spoke to her gentle-like as if she was Mariposa. "Have ya out in a hog’s breath."

The terror in her blue eyes changed to trust, and it stabbed into his gut deeper than a knife. No one had ever looked at him like that. And he didn’t deserve it now. His teasing had gotten her into this, but he wouldn’t let her down.

By now the boys, covered in muck themselves, had freed Sara to her waist. Jack wrapped his other arm around her shivering body squeezing her in his embrace.

Bracing his feet, he yanked her out. With a sucking sound, she shot free, the unexpected momentum carrying them backwards and down to the ground. With a thud that knocked the wind out of him, Jack fell flat on his back, Sara jarring on top of him. For a moment, he lay there, hearing his own harsh breaths and feeling her safe in his arms.

She drooped her head onto his chest, her back shuddering with her sobs. Protectiveness rose in him. Awkwardly, he tightened one arm around her and patted her shoulder with the other hand. "Got ya safe, now. No need for that there cryin’."

Mark dropped to his knees beside them, his freckled face pale. "Sara, Sara." He added his pats to Jack’s. "I’m sorry, Sara. I’m so sorry."

Lizzy crouched down by Sara’s head, fluttering finger touches on her sister’s head and crooning. The concern on the tiny girl’s face made Jack feel lower than a snake’s belly.

Sara rolled her head to look Jack in the eyes. The drenched blue of her gaze melted the walls he held around his heart. "You saved my life."

Uncomfortable, he loosened his arms. "I ain’t no hero."

"Yes, you are," she insisted, laying her head back on his chest.

For more information about Debra, go to her website, http://www.drdebraholland.com/ The buy link for the two books mentioned above is http://www.tinyurl.com/3mx5hl9 

 

 

Welcome to my World, aka. Mini-autobiography

I grew up on the South Plains, in the northwest portion of West Texas, on the flat table-top Caprock, where the sky looked like a big blue bowl turned upside down on a sea of green cotton or brown plowed dirt. There’s something sacred about it, holding the clean, pure air and sky and land in my heart.

It was the best of times, “the Nifty Fifties", labeled conservative, a classic American era, in which all was right in our country. But the entire population was in the throes of dying innocence, with Elvis, the Hydrogen bomb, the McCarthy hearings, and Marilyn Monroe leading us along. America would never be the same again.

And so in the sixties, the social revolution began. Young men burned their draft cards and young women burned their bras.

Well, I didn't have a draft card, and my bra wasn't big enough to make much of a flame…so I put my two young children with a babysitter, and began college…at age 27.

I married very young. My husband and I took turns going to college for degrees. He earned two, and then it was my turn, back and forth, all the time raising our kids and working, too. Between us, we have five degrees—but I'm not the one with the doctorate.

Thank God for the G.I. Bill.

My life is divided into clear-cut sections. Now? I'm in a wonderful place, where I can "do my own thing." I learned to play golf first, and for years competed for quarters and sometimes a little trophy. Then, due to odd circumstances, I quit golf and took up writing stories. That was in 2004.

I'd like to invite you into my world, where I live and write novels. This place is in Central Texas, and even though we're in a drought right now, I won't live anyplace else. Why? Because it's home, and I feel tied to it just as I did the High Plains.

We live in a big subdivision, which was divided into three-acres plots about forty years ago. My desk sits beside a window so I can look through the sceened-in porch and out the back and watch all kinds of wildlife meander to the bird bath and water bucket.

This is the screened-in porch. Some of the deer, like this doe and her twin walk right up to the back door, knowing that's where that human appears with water, and sometimes vegetable peelings, stale bread, and cantaloupe rinds or banana peelings.

A red fox sneaks up early in the mornings and drinks from the bucket. Then she scurries away toward the back.

My back "yard" resembles typical ranchland around here—live oaks intermingled with a few mesquites and sometimes the juniper (misnamed cedar), which sucks up water ten times more than any other tree. We cut those down.

While I look out on what was once a ranch, I daydream about our pioneers who settled Texas 150 years ago or more. This photo is one of my ancestors. In this beautiful picture, taken around 1840, she is 16 years old, dressed up for her portrait. People like her inspire me to write Western Historical romances.

Two of my books: The Cameron Sisters



TEXAS PROMISE-BOOK I



TEXAS TRUE-BOOK II

These are the last of the Camerons of Texas series. Please leave a comment to enter a drawing for one of these novels.

Thank you for visiting….

Celia Yeary-Romance...and a little bit 'o Texas  
http://www.celiayeary.blogspot.com http://www.celiayeary.com

http://sweetheartsofthewest.blogspot.com/