Those of us who are fortunate enough to be blessed with children know the pure joy of holding them in your arms for the first time or welcoming them into your home if you’ve made the generous choice to open your heart and your life to the child of another mother and father. Children need parents to keep them safe and to guide them.
Hazel was well-loved from the time she was an infant. When she was born in December 1889, her family took the time and invested the money to have a formal portrait taken of her at the studios of L.C. Abbey on the ground floor of 303 East Main Street in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
The back of the card on which the portrait is printed advertises “fine work at moderate prices”, but it is still notable that the portrait was done, since it was a lengthy process that was not available to all people. A second portrait taken at the same studio a few years later shows the family’s dedication to preserving images of their dear daughter. I don’t know whether they had portraits done of her two younger sisters, but I assume they did.
I mention these portraits because of how important they become when they are all you have to remember someone you love. In my case, it’s delightful to be able to look back and see my great-grandmother as an infant and as a young child, and I am proud to hold something that belonged to my family 135 years ago. I am certain that James and Cora, Hazel’s parents, felt that same pride when they first held the photograph.
The photographs that appear in Saints & Deceivers are altogether different.
When I first discovered them together in two albums, they struck me as odd because of all four of Charlie and Hazel’s children, these depicted only one. They began with the child as an infant and continued over about four years. The other children and the adults surrounding the child were unrelated to our family.
I suddenly remembered something that had been whispered about, but which I wasn’t sure was true, and I began following the threads. That story became Saints & Deceivers, the heartbreaking tale of a young couple trying to juggle careers and raise a family under increasingly difficult conditions with the help of the people they loved and trusted, but it appeared that trust had been betrayed.
For those of you who are concerned about the safety of the child, do not despair. This is inspired by true events, and the child grew up to be one of my dear great aunts. I just won’t tell you how that happened. Read the rest of the books to find out. Check out my Author Page:
Dorrie-Lenore Parsons 
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