How It All Began . . .

I didn’t purposely set out to be a writer, though I’ve always written.

From the time I was a little girl, I used to keep little spiral notebooks full of poetry I’d write as gifts for my parents and for my brother for every holiday and for their birthdays. My mother kept them, so I still have them, and I admit I wasn’t a great poet. I still admire great poetry and those who compose it.

I moved on to writing short stories and even won a contest in Elementary School for something called “Seasel and His Adventures Under the Sea.” I remember someone asking me whether I had cleverly made a play on words and was referencing Cecil of Beanie and Cecil of television fame, whom I’d never heard of. I was clumsily playing around with the word ‘seashell’, though I suppose my seven-year-old brain may have heard the name “Cecil” at some point in some other context. At any rate, the story was published in an obscure children’s publication, which I’ve been unable to find these many years later, and that was the end of it.

I enjoyed writing in school and did well at it, but didn’t pursue it. Instead, I got a degree in languages, did some graduate work, got married, had children, and became a bilingual education teacher for a while.  I also became an entrepreneur, opening my own retail business when my husband’s research position took us to a new city.

When we moved again, this time to the east coast, I became involved in the theater. I’d trained in theater early on, studying dance at the same studio in Hollywood where my grandmother had studied decades before. (I have the photos, and I’ll post them sometime.) Anyway, on the east coast, I began designing and then directing theater and had my own local TV program reading to children in Spanish and English, designed to promote literacy. I eventually got my certification to teach Communication and Performing Arts and was hired to teach at the High School level. We had numerous award-winning productions and designs, including an original play.

Unfortunately, a health crisis caused me to retire early and re-think my life. I have consulted on some theater projects, and it will always be part of my life, especially because my daughter is a professional vocalist and now has a career in the medical field treating patients with vocal issues; our sons are both musicians, and our young grandchildren are all involved in the arts.

But at about the same time as my health crisis was over, I lost my parents, and I gained the “Inherited Treasures” – A box arrived filled with thousands of photographs, collections of newspaper clippings, letters, yearbooks, and six family Bibles from various people and eras.

It took almost eighteen months to cull through and categorize all of it, trying to match up faces and names. Thank heaven for the Bibles, because people wrote everything down. Well, maybe not everything.

When I was finished, I thought, “I have to put this into a book or all of it will be lost.” That’s how we got to where we are now. It has taken another two years of writing, editing, researching, fact-checking, and sending the book out to readers to see what they thought. They asked for more, so there are two more books, and I hope to keep going as long as there are people who want to read about these wonderful people.