A GIRL FROM DALLAS

As some of you know from previous posts, I'm a sixth generation Texan on my mother's side. My ancestors helped to settle Dallas in 1845 and stayed in the area. I am proud to be a member of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.

Matelyn Roddy and Phillip Carr met in Dallas in 1942. She was 14 and he was a much older man of 18. They dated, with my grandmother's permission, until he enlisted in the Army in February 1943. A very determined young girl, my mother boarded the train a few days after her 15th birthday and headed  for North Carolina to say, "I do".

Matelyn and Phil Carr c.1943

Gloria Lynn Carr (Cope) aka Carra Copelin about 9 months old in this snap.
I'm proud to say I've managed to maintain my girlish figure. 

I came to Dallas on December 6, 1947 at 11:55 am, via Florence Nightingale Hospital.

My first abode - 1022 Kings Highway

My parents lived with her family in a beautiful old home in Oak Cliff, a suburb of Dallas.

Mother and Daddy bought their first house in 1951, in the newer neighborhood, where my brother made his appearance in 1952. We lived there until 1956 when we moved to Arlington.

Carra in 3rd grade

 I attended school there from 2nd grade through the 12th and I graduated from Sam Houston High School.

Jerry Cope about 10 months

Now, oddly enough, I met my future husband, Jerry Cope, at the local A&P Grocery and as folks do we got to talking. He was born at Florence Nightingale Hospital, lived in Oak Cliff and moved to Arlington in 1953. Turns out we've always lived within five miles of each other.

Jerry in 3rd grade

Jerry and I married in May, 1967 and started building our home in 1969, in Arlington. Where else? It remains our home today.

Our daughter, Amye, came along in 1972 on Thanksgiving morning and our son, Brady, was born in 1976 in the Bicentennial year. 

I worked as a Medical Laboratory Technologist from 1965 (I did start in high school) until the clinic I worked for sold the lab in 2008. Since Jerry was already retired, I decided to stay home, too. Why should he have all the fun?

Writing became my focus and my first book, Code of Honor, Texas Code Series, Book One ,was published in July 2013. Three other titles followed with a fifth due out soon. I'm a member of RWA and serve as President of Yellow Rose Romance Writers.

Jerry and I this past summer on our Arkansas vacation.

I enjoy getting together with friends, critique partners and my bridge group. Our grandkids come over frequently, oh and Jerry is now a chicken farmer. He has twelve chickens out back in their area we call, Cackleberry Farms. Save your cartons, we should be gathering eggs by November.

Katie and the Irish Texan, a novella, is the first book in the Brides of Texas Code Series. It's available on Amazon Kindle and soon to be at Apple iBooks.

Blurb:

Dermot McTiernan is determined to move on with his life after losing his one and only love to another man. He decides to try his hand at ranching in North Central Texas with his friend, Ian Benning. He figures if that doesn't work out, there are many other opportunities in the booming post-war state. When the luscious red-head from County Cork, Ireland shows up in Dallas, can he retain the courage of his convictions and move on without her?

Kathleen O'Donnell made a monumental mistake marrying, Kelsey Gilhooley. Her decision for entering the union, no matter how honorable, had made her life a living hell. Even though still married, she holds out hope for finding the man of her dreams. When she comes across her tall, dark-eyed Irishman in Dallas, Texas, will she be able to abandon happiness and walk away a second time?

Link to Amazon Kindle:  http://tinyurl.com/n8wg34k for $1.99.

Thanks for visiting, Carra

Find me on my website: http://carracopelin.com

Facebook: http://facebook/carracopelin

Twitter: http://twitter/CarraCopelin

A WEST TEXAS GIRL GROWS UP

BY:



ME-CELIA ANN DAVIS (YEARY)
8 YEARS OLD-WITH ONE OF MANY
TONI HOME PERMANENTS

One day Daddy came home with two surprises—a used 1940 Ford and a job with an oil company. Both were significant because we had never owned a car

and employment was hard to come by.

The Ford and I were the same age!

MY MOTHER--SEE HER BLACK
EYES? AM I THE SPITTING IMAGE?
SHE WAS 16 IN THIS PHOTO.

MY DADDY--CAN YOU SEE HIS
LIGHT EYES? BABY BLUE-WE CALL
THEM "THE DAVIS BLUE EYES"
HE IS ABOUT 20 HERE.

The year was 1944. We--my parents and two sisters--lived on a small farm in North Texas near Daddy’s parents.

An oil boom had hit Texas. Employment with an oil company was an open door to a better and more secure life, but to become more financially solvent meant leaving home.

ME, IN MY SMART ALECK PERIOD,
TEN YEARS OLD--I ADORED THOSE
JEANS AND SADDLE OXFORDS.
OUR FIRST HOUSE IN SIX YEARS-
TINY, TINY STUCCO.

For the next six years, we were transient and homeless. However, we did have places to "live" in during our odyssey around the South Plains. The five of us lived in motel rooms, boarding houses, two room duplexes, one rented-out room, and a tiny 3 room stucco house.

I grew up on the South Plains, in the northwest portion of West Texas, in Levelland (near Lubbock). There, 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 soil, our family put down roots.

I THINK I WAS 14 HERE. ALMOST GROWN.

It was the best of times, “the Nifty Fifties", labeled conservative, a classic American era, in which all was right in our country. The fifties decade remains permanently imbedded in my heart and mind, which formed values and beliefs and a way of life. Our family was typical—a father who worked, a mother who kept house and tended to us three girls, and we lived in a house built by our own Daddy’s hands.

ME AND JIM--MY 55TH HIGH SCHOOL REUNION
LAST SUMMER, AND HIS 60TH.
IN LEVELLAND

Fortune was good to me, as I married the best man on earth--a West Texas boy. I was the typical stay-at-home-mommy and good wife...until the mid-sixties exploded. Young men burned their draft cards and young women burned their bras. Even I got caught up in it. However, since I didn't have a very big bra to burn, I put our two children with a babysitter and entered college at age 27. What was I thinking? Life would never be the same.

Now, decades later, I rejoice that I enjoyed a career, learned to play golf and bridge, traveled with my husband, and now have three very tall grandsons who will soon be out on their own.
Look out world!

Writing romance novels, as well as other forms of fiction, takes most of my time these days. I love staying at home after about twenty years of touring Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, Mexico, Canada, and finally the good old USA, from sea to shining sea.

My husband and I live in the Hill Country of Central Texas, among live oaks and mesquite trees, and roaming deer. This is from our screened-in back porch.

OUR FRONT PORCH

I spend much of my time writing and promoting what I write. We are involved in church, the community, a circles of friends, and family.

My working years were spent teaching biology to high school students in a private military boarding school--San Marcos Academy--with mostly international students. What a wonderful job that was--I loved every minute.
However, I took early retirement at age 50 and I began the second half of my life.

I am a lifelong Texan, a member of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, and everything I write is all Texas.

TEXAS DREAMER: Western Romance: cattle, oil, love, hate, jealousy...revenge. This is the fourth "Texas novel."

First came TEXAS BLUE, then TEXAS PROMISE, then TEXAS TRUE, and now...TEXAS DREAMER.

Now available on Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble--ebook-$2.99

~~*~~
EXCERPT:
She put her arms around the mare's neck and whispered in her ear. The mare nodded, as though saying, "yes" to something. Emilie laughed, rubbed her ears, and patted her neck. She walked all around the horse, touching and talking softly, as though wooing a lover.
Lee couldn't take his eyes off Emilie. Here was her soft side he'd never seen. Would she treat a man...a lover...the same way? Whispering, softly laughing, touching?
~*~
--287 pages--Link to Amazon/Kindle
http://www.amazon.com/Texas-Dreamer-Celia-Yeary-ebook/dp/B00IHPPQ0E/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392738732&sr=1-7&keywords=celia+yeary

Link to B and N:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/texas-dreamer-celia-yeary/1118672103?ean=2940045702157

Thanks so much for visiting!

Find me here:
Celia Yeary-Romance...and a little bit 'o TexasAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/celiayeary
 My Website
My Blog
Sweethearts of the West-Blog
My Facebook Page 

MY LIFE: A NUT LEAVES ITS SHELL! BY KIRSTEN LYNN

First, I would like to thank the Sweethearts for asking me to be a part of this amazing group of authors!  It’s an honor join you all. 

Through September, we’re posting a bit about ourselves. I initially thought how easy this would be, but it’s hard to write about oneself. I would much rather write about a villain or hero of the American West, or fictional characters, but here we go…

I was born in a log cabin in the backwoods of Kentucky…No wait, that’s not right… Sorry, that‘s Abraham Lincoln…I’ve got it now…

My love of the West and cowboys comes naturally. I was born and raised in God’s playground, also called Wyoming.  The daughter of two school teachers and possibly the finest parents on earth, but surrounded on both sides of the family by farmers, ranchers, a couple rodeo cowboys, salt of the earth with a few pepper flakes mixed in, average ordinary people.  My brother and I were blessed.  Dad was also my fourth and fifth grade math teacher that poor, poor man. My mom was a first grade teacher, who is one of the most caring and giving people I know. Both taught me the value of hard work, faith, honor, and being true to myself.  

My parents in the Tetons

My maternal grandparents had a dairy farm and I spent as much time as possible out at “the farm.”  My poor uncle had a shadow for many years. I “helped” him irrigate, milk, or whatever else he was doing.  If I wasn’t with him, I was on the top post of the cow pens telling the bulls all my problems and listening to theirs, telling them stories, or giving an impromptu concert.  The farm was the center of my universe for many years…I still miss that old piece of dirt. I’m sure if you look hard enough my footprints are still haunting that ground.

My Grandpa "Papa" as a young ladies man

Lala who tamed his wild heart

Papa (yes that's me the pink bundle)

Lala still beautiful at any age

Both of my grandmothers were strong, beautiful, amazing Western women.  They were also natural born story tellers and shared wonderful stories of their past and my ancestors.  These tales filled my imagination with cowboys, American Indians, sodbusters, great heartbreak and joy.  (Sorry I don't have a picture of my Grandma Arnold at my fingertips)

   

What I didn’t learn from my grandmothers, I learned from my dad on our family vacations. We drove throughout the West, with him telling us the history of places along the way. In true Western fashion, what he didn’t know, he weaved an even greater tale. 

Trip to South Dakota (me on Ol Smokey)

Up near Virginia City, MT

After high school, I wanted to leave Wyoming (I know I was an idiot), but I didn’t want to go far. So, I headed up to Montana. There I spent three years going to college and graduated with an Extended-History degree, meaning I didn’t have a minor I opted to binge on history courses, but still managed to be just three credits short of an English literature minor.  I loved all history and had a devil of time trying to figure out what I wanted to focus on for my graduate degree.  It was between Civil War and the history of the West.  That’s when a professor took me aside and threw a third iron onto the fire. He told me I had a great mind for strategy and tactics and thought I’d make a good military historian…I didn’t know the military had historians, but I was sold.

Annapolis, MD

So, I don’t bore you with all my education (I know, too late) I ended up with a Master’s in Naval Warfare that I worked towards while working full time as an accounting clerk (if you can imagine) in Montana.  Through a series of luck, hard work, and volunteering with the Navy and Marine Corps, I spent six years living in Annapolis, Maryland and working at the Washington Navy Yard in D.C.  It was an amazing experience, and I wouldn't give the experience up for the world, but I belong in the West, this is where my roots are and I was drying up out East.

Landing in Vietnam at the Marine Corps Museum

Playing CO of USS BARRY at Washington Navy Yard

 

It was about this time a friend started writing and while searching for books and online courses that might help her I decided to give it a shot.  Unlike many authors, the thought of writing a book, other than a non-fiction tomb, hadn’t crossed my mind. I enjoyed reading romance, and my mind was full of stories and daydreams, but putting it down on paper and trying to sell it was beyond me.  After I wrote my first story, a romantic suspense that I’d still love to revise and see if I could get it published, I was hooked. I couldn’t get enough of writing and soon turned to writing my heart and my heart was the West, but the military still held a tight grip. Many of my stories combine the three pieces of my heart: the West, the military, and history. Honestly, I just don’t think I can put into words how much I adore writing and how much it means to me. 

On one of my visits home, my parents brought me to Sheridan to do some research for a story. It was love at first sight.  As he told me stories of living here, visiting his family here and the people we have buried in this ground, I felt a stronger bond to this land.

Downtown Sheridan

Cow camp in the Bighorns

A few years ago, I resigned from my job in D.C., packed up, sent an e-mail to a local museum in Sheridan, Wyoming and moved back home.  Life fell into place and I was embraced by the Sheridan community. I got a job at the small museum. Then I got another job collecting oral histories from local residents. Then I got a third job helping a local ranch establish a private museum and work on the histories of the two ranches owned by the same family. I also still work with the Marines, assisting them with their oral history program when needed. 

I have fifteen completed manuscripts and most of the stories take place right here in the shadow of the Bighorns. Although, I have set a couple in the Tetons (a mountain range just north of where I grew up) and my debut novel and the sequel to it pay homage to Montana, a place and people who captured a piece of my heart in the years I lived up there.

I have been blessed. There have been heartaches and dreams shattered along the way, but I would never say I’d do anything different, because who knows the people and places I would have missed.  Life can break you down, or build you up…ultimately I think it’s your choice.

Whew! I hope you’re all still awake. 

My debut novel is HOME FIRES, and I’ve been just a mite excited about its release (read bouncing off the walls, dancing in aisles).  Hope you’ll check it out. I assure you Cord and Olivia have a much more exciting life than the one you just read. 

A shattered Confederate hero turns west to forget the love of a woman he believes is dead. Hunting him is an iron willed Army nurse determined to find the love she knows still lives and an enemy resolved to destroy them both.

  Amazon buy link

Barnes & Noble buy link

Kirsten Lynn writes stories based on the people and history of the West, more specifically those who live and love in Wyoming and Montana. Using her MA in Naval History, Kirsten, weaves her love of the West and the military together in many of her stories, merging these two halves of her heart. When she's not roping, riding and rabble-rousing with the cowboys and cowgirls who reside in her endless imagination, Kirsten works as a professional historian.

A Perfect Life

This month here on Sweethearts of the West, it was decided instead of talking about other folks, we'd talk a little bit about ourselves. Its hard to imagine authors having lives outside their books, (I'm guilty of seeing them as writing machines too) so a look at where we come from and how we got here should be a refreshing treat for everyone throughout the rest of the month.

I did a post similar to this back in April when I joined the other Sweethearts here on the blog. You can find the post HERE if you'd like to learn about my unusual hobby and see me dressed in the 1800's period clothing I make. 

That first post didn't say I'm a North Carolina native (I'm only a 45 minute drive from Charlotte) or that I have a sister. There's only 12 days being a year between us so, every April, for twelve days, we are exactly the same age.

My first serious crush was at the ripe young age of thirteen and five years later, that same boy asked me to marry him. We'll celebrate our 28th wedding anniversary this coming January. 

I've always had a very active imagination. I loved to pretend I was a writer but it wasn't until I hit my thirties (and I found FanFiction) that the writing bug bit hard and once it did, I was hooked. I penned my first original fiction three years later and was published two years after that. 

It wasn't always easy to write in those early days. My daughter and son were still young, so finding time to write wasn't always easy. I did what I could and as they grew older and needed me less, I found more time to write. Then the grandbabies started showing up!

My daughter has given us three now. Two rowdy boys--Hayden (who is a special needs child), Lucas (a cowboy and indian crazy 5 year old), and our newest, a sweet little girl named Caroline Elizabeth. She arrived two weeks early and was born at a very small 4 pounds. No one knew she'd be so tiny. She spent a week in the NICU and is now four months old…and still only weighing in at twelve pounds. Looks as if she may always be a petite little thing.

My writing time is shared now with those grandbabies but I'm not complaining. If we can't enjoy life as it comes to us, then there's no point in being here.

To celebrate the print release of my Willow Creek novel, His Brother's Wife, I'm holding a Goodreads giveaway. I have five (5) signed copies of the book up for grabs. To enter, just click the button below.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

His Brother's Wife

by Lily Graison

Giveaway ends October 03, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

About Lily Graison

USA TODAY  bestselling author Lily Graison writes historical western romances and dabbles in contemporary and paranormal romance. First published in 2005, Lily has written over a dozen romance novels that range from sweet to spicy.

She lives in Hickory, North Carolina with her husband, three high-strung Yorkies and more cats than she can count and is mother of two and grandmother of three. On occasion, she can be found at her sewing machine creating 1800’s period clothing or participating in civil war reenactments and area living history events. When not portraying a southern belle, you can find her at a nearby store feeding her obsession for all things resembling office supplies.

To see the dresses Lily has created, visit her Pinterest page.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Pinterest | Google+  Wattpad | Instagram | Push Page

My Life in a Nutshell

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

I was born at the end of WWII. Right after the war ended, life was easy and people were happy to have the horrors over with. We were an average family - probably considered boring in these times. Santa Rosa, California, is where my younger brother, Steven, and I grew up. My mother was the 'happy' housewife and stay-at-home mother. My father walked to work at the gas and electric company every day.

My education was in the public school systems. After graduating from Santa Rosa High School, I studied business at Commerce Business College and came out with secretarial skills that I still use in my writing career. I always wanted to be a secretary and ended up spending several years working for Certified Public Accountants in Santa Rosa and then Sacramento. It's a good thing I loved to type because we had to type every tax return page without error. It's why I became a qualified statistical typist.

 

I met my husband at an Air Force picnic when I was 23 years old. I knew the minute I saw Ken that he was the man I wanted to marry. Four months after we met, I put him on a plane and watched him fly off to Vietnam for 366 days. Five days after he returned to the states, we got married in a beautiful chapel in Sacramento and have been happy for 45 years. Our daughters were nine and half years apart. We lost our older daughter to cancer when she was 32 years old. Our younger daughter is married and works in a County Clerk's Office.

Writing has always been part of my life. In school I went a bit overboard with term papers. I don't think I ever turned in a project less than 2 inches thick. In 1989 I joined an International Pen Friends Organization and wrote to 41 foreign pen pals for years. Now I am down to fifteen from the original group and think of them as good friends. Cristache from Romania spent three weeks with us, one of my German pen pals and his wife visited us for a day, and we spent three days with in the home of my Scottish penpal and her husband. It's been an amazing part of our lives to have friends in so many foreign countries.

Our 'foreign children' have been a major part of our lives for what seems like forever. We met Bert on a camping trip 33 years ago. He was 21 and touring the states with several other young people at the time. When he got married, we traveled to his homeland of Holland and were part of the wedding party in a grand castle. Our Swedish daughter, Maggie, was an exchange student from Malmo, Sweden for the school year 1986-87. To this day she and her husband consider us their 'other' parents. Luckily for us, we have been able to visit their homes and they ours on many occasions.

In 1996 I became the president of country singing artist, Kevin Sharp's fan club. Those 12 years I worked for him are some of the most treasured moments in my life. I was so proud of Kevin when his first song, Nobody Knows, was No. 1 on the charts for four weeks. My fan club partner and I spent five summers in Nashville running Kevin's fan club booth for a week of greeting his fans and supervising his meet and greets. An extra bonus was standing on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry while Kevin sang.

I started making quilts after we lost our daughter. I have given away 54 quilts in her honor over the years. The first quilts were for babies. I make them out of brightly colored flannel. My husband is the one who finds the best prints and colors in the fabric stores. I have also made quilts with bookcovers on fabric and one wedding quilt.

I actually started having that 'I want to be a published author' dream in 1989. I joined Romance Writers of America in 1999 and after 22 years of practicing the craft, making lots of writer friends, and finishing two novels with a third one started, I received an offer for five books from Desert Breeze Publishing on Christmas Eve, 2011 at 10:35 -- but who is remembering? My sixth historical romance novel is what I am working on now. Since we were living in the Sierra Mountains of California, near where the gold discovery happened, I was able to write about the 1849 gold rush. I loved the history surrounding the area and I wrote what I loved.

Three months ago, we left my native state of California and moved to my husband's hometown in northern Wisconsin. We love living here with the Tomahawk River as our back border. I have the greatest view from my desk in my sunroom office. As I finish writing Paradise Pines Series: Stealing Her Heart, the last book in my Paradise Pines Series, I am looking forward to getting to know my new area and writing the Northwoods Series. This is an exciting time in our lives. We are getting to know my husband's classmates and they are involved in selling my books and making me feel part of their community.

 
My newest book, Broken Promise, was released on May 21, 2014. It can be purchased in ebook or print format at Desert Breeze Publishing at

 http://www.desertbreezepublishing.com/paradise-pines-broken-promise-epub/ and at Amazon http://amzn.com/B00KI268Z6