FREE EBOOK - GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS

FREE EBOOK - Saturday March 21, 2020 to Wednesday, March 25, 2020- download your FREE EBook copy of “GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS” – AN INSPIRATIONAL NOVEL OF HISTORICAL FICTION SPANNING GREAT DEPRESSION AND WORLD WAR II—A HEARTWARMING FAMILY SAGA CHOCK FULL OF HEROIC CHARACTERS—A STORY OF FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE. READ TO YOUR HEART’S CONTENT DURING THIS TIME OF ISOLATION, WITH ALL MY LOVE- LINDA LEE GREENE, MULTI-AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR & ARTIST - #kindledeals #ASMSG, #weekendread #familysaga #inspirational http://goo.gl/imUwKO

My Talking Heart - Chapter Six: I KNOW SOMETHING OF WAR

I know something of war. I’m convinced my awareness of it began in utero—in November, 1942 when my parents conceived me and America had been fighting in World War II for nearly one year. Bob, my mother’s beloved older brother was already in it—he was one of Patton’s warriors in Operation Torch, the November, 1942 British-United States invasion against Germany’s stronghold in French North Africa, my country’s first official military action in the European Theater of the war. By then, Bob had been in the Army for a year, stationed at various training facilities on the east coast of the United States. My father’s dear older brother Bill had enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan. Although at the time I was conceived Bill was still stateside, in California, actually, among my parent’s other male friends and relations of draft age, most were in military training camps or fighting overseas, or expected to be at any moment. “War” was at the front of everyone’s mind then, in their conversations, their dreams; it defined every facet of their lives. It was as much a part of my mother as her blood type, and through our interdependence was transferred to me. I’m sure of it.  

November, 1942 was momentous for my parents in another way since it was the month Dad turned eighteen, and therefore, became eligible for the draft. My parents had been married for two months almost to the day. And if my calculations are correct, considering the 280-day gestation period for humans, Mom’s egg and Dad’s sperm that united and made me blossomed a mere six days before Dad’s eighteenth birthday and 57 days after they had tied the knot. Needless to say, Mom’s anxiety went through the roof, and to elevate her disquiet still further, her seventeen-year-old brother Bussy, seriously ill since the age of ten with a respiratory ailment, took a turn for the worse and died on January 5, 1943. A sad sidebar to his death is that more than likely, penicillin would have saved him, but it occurred before the drug was available to the general public. My grandmother, my mother, and Bob never got over losing Bussy.

For an achingly long period of time after Bob’s deployment to Africa, letters between American servicemen abroad and their families back home were few and far between. This was a family of prolific letter writers. (I know without question the source of my writing gene.) Having grown accustomed to receiving a letter, and sometimes two letters per day from Bob, my grandparents and all who knew and also corresponded with him grew frantic with fear for him during the lengthy communication blackout. The worst of it for my grandparents was that they had no reliable means of informing Bob either of his brother’s failing health, or of his passing. Following my grandmother’s death in 2001, among hundreds of old letters, cards, newspaper clippings, photographs, and other print material spanning the years of the Great Depression and World War II, found in an old chest tucked at the back of a closet of her house, was the following letter. At the time of her passing, Dean, her youngest, was her only living offspring. She was eight months shy of her 100^th birthday and had outlived her husband and seven of her children, including Bob and my mother:

                                                                                                                          Peebles, Ohio   Jan. 10, 1943

Dear Son:

                It is with a sad and aching heart [but] I am going to write to you. I have studied and thought what is best to do. But this is the only way I can see. Son poor little Bussy left us on Jan. 5 at Cora’s house. [Cora was my grandmother’s sister who lived in town close to the doctor and hospital] I am so lonesome & nervous. I was constantly by his side for 3 weeks. He passed away just 3 weeks from the day he took bad. He & I was sitting at the table eating our dinner on Dec. 15, when I just happened to look at him & seen something was wrong with him. His face & head was jerking awful. I ran around to him & asked what was wrong. He coulden’t talk. It only lasted a short time. When he got over it he said, “Oh Mom. It is just this old disease getting the best of me.” We had the Dr. He [the doctor] said he could do nothing. He [Bussy] had 5 of those spells then took an awful headache. We took him to the hospital. They said there was a clot on his brain. It was on the right side but made his left arm & leg useless. He woulden’t stay in the hospital. I took him to Cora’s as they told me it would be allright since they could do nothing. Said all I could do was keep his head packed in Ice, rest & quiet. We were at Cora’s a week, and the last few days he seemed so much better. I thought he was going to get well, and could soon take him home [to their farm], as I wrote and told you. Don’t know if you ever got the letter or not. But the suffering I guess was to much for his heart & then you know what a condition he was in any way. Son he took it all so patient. Just prayed all the time almost. He wanted Herman [Tolle, the preacher]. He told him he was ready to go. Oh son how he prayed for all you boys. It would wring your heart. The last words I heard him say was,“Tell them all to meet me.” His mind was so on Sim [Workman, their friend who was also in the Army fighting in North Africa] somehow. Said “Mommy, I feel sorry for Sim. He diden’t have a Mother to tell him about Jesus like I have.” Although you know Sim has a good mother. He [Bussy] would put his arms around me and say “I love you Mommy.” I don’t know whether I can ever stand this or not, but Son put your trust in Jesus. Ask him every day to take care of you. Bussy would say “Mommy, don’t worry about Bob. He is coming back.” But the Lord can cut us all off any time. So don’t forget to pray if it is only to yourself. Poor little Bussy is in a better home but I miss him so. He was always here with me. I can never stay here alone anymore. Well Son I can’t write more but can only say put your trust in God and we will all be living on for happier days some where. Answer if you can. With so much love, Mother.

 

P.S.  This is Mon. morning. I forgot to say the rest of us is well. Son I hope you are well. Try and not to grieve to much only live to meet Bussy. I feel a little better this morn(ing). Some think I shoulden’t of let you know. But I coulden’t of lived a lie & write to you like everything was allright, and then probably some one else would of said something about it when they would write to you. All we can say is Gods will must be done. By by.  XOXOXO

Bussy’s heroic seventeen years of life is a centerpiece of GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS (http://goo.gl/imUwKO), my novel that is a blend of fact and fiction, populated by my great-grandparents, my grandparents, my parents and the people of their circles, as well as one main fictional character. It is set primarily during the years of the First World War, the Great Depression, and the beginning of America’s involvement in World War II. An additional key feature of the novel is the transcription of dozens of my family’s old letters, of the tenor of the one above. The letters chronicle, in exceedingly intense intimacy, the hearts and minds of a community of deep country people far removed from mainstream life at the time. While they were poor and unsophisticated, eking out a living from the soil, they fell in love, got married, and raised children; they endured illness, death, and every conceivable loss, and yet they celebrated life so profoundly as to warm your heart or break it. It was these people and their counterparts across the nation first called upon to put the lives of their boys on the line and to save the world during World War II. I gave Bussy life once again in my novella for young readers titled ROOSTER TALE (http://goo.gl/vNq32g).

                My father was drafted into the Navy in mid-1943. He was given a medical discharge while still in boot camp, however, a consequence of a severe problem with his stomach. It was a condition that plagued him all the 89 years of his life. He didn’t make it home in time to witness my birth, but arrived soon thereafter. Following my mother’s death on June 29, 1992, Dad was the one remaining constant of love and strength for my sisters and me until his death on March 29, 2014. Had she lived, the day my father died would have been my mother’s 91^st birthday.     

                From the instant of my conception to the present day, “War” has been my consistent reality, as it has been for everyone else, to one degree or another—far too many of us in the thick of it, and others like me, witnessing it via the media. Today it is quite possible we are in peril of yet another war—and if it comes to pass this time and under the present circumstances, it might be the final one for reasons too frightening to contemplate. If that is the case, where will future generations find reserves of old letters, CDs, computer hard drives, and flash drives among the carnage and charred remains of our planet to tell them about us? The elephant in the room is whether or not there would be future generations. GOD HELP US!

Best-selling author, blogger, award-winning artist and interior designer Linda Lee Greene is on social media at the following:

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/lindaleegreene

Email: lindaleegreene.author.artist@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/LindaLeeGreeneAuthor

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/LindaLeeGreeneAuthor

Twitter: @LLGreeneAuthor

Blog:  http://Ingoodcompanyohio.blogspot.com

Also look for her at LinkedIn and Google+

A Collection of Personal and Revealing Letters

My historical fiction novel "Guardians and Other Angels" features transcriptions of authentic letters written by several of the main characters. Included in the novel is this one dated July 22, 1936, and is penned by my maternal grandmother Lena Gaffin and addressed to her firstborn child Marlin "Bob" Gaffin. Bob was in the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC), a highly successful program put in place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its purpose was to provide employment for young men across the nation, disenfranchised young men essentially, who were victims of the Great Depression.

In the novel, I funnel the experiences of the characters through pivotal decades of the twentieth century, making it a multi-layered story that blends fact and fiction.

"Guardians and Other Angels" is a 2.99 eBook on Amazon. http://goo.gl/imUwKO.

The paperback edition will be available in a few days.

.99 eBook Features the Evolution of Two American Families Over Time

Beginning Sunday, June 14, 2014, the true-life novel GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS by author Linda Lee Greene will be discounted to .99 eBook http://goo.gl/imUwKO 

 

In GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS, best-selling author Linda Lee Greene captures the evolution of two families over the early to late decades of the twentieth century. A warm and generous work of historical fiction, each character is intricately rendered, each one sculpted so precisely into the matrix of the families and their environment that we come away with a greater understanding of the mystifying ties of kinship, the everlasting call of home. Based on actual events, and featuring dozens of authentic personal letters written by the story’s principles, Greene delivers a seamless blend of fact and fiction in her multi-layered novel. “Reminiscent of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ and ‘Angela’s Ashes,’ one only has to read those Pulitzer Prize winners to appreciate the level of care Greene took in her writing of her stunningly beautiful GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS,” says one reviewer. #twentiethcentury #love #family #siblings #marriage #farm #Ohio #GreatDepression #WWII #respiratorydisease 

 

Linda Lee Greene is also the co-author with Debra Shiveley Welch of the suspense novel JESUS GANDHI OMA MAE ADAMS http://amzn.to/VazHFG. Linda’s artwork is on view at www.gallery-llgreene.com. Linda’s Twitter handle is @LLGreeneAuthor. Her Amazon Author’s Page is at https://www.amazon.com/author/lindaleegreene, and follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/#!/LindaLeeGreeneAuthor, as well as on her Goodreads page at http://www.goodreads.com/LindaLeeGreeneAuthor

 

 

When We Read, We Look for Ourselves in the Words

When we read, we look for ourselves in the words. If we are unable or uninspired to find ourselves there, the words remain meaningless to us. The stories they convey become “throwaway” experiences, never to revisit our minds, never to summon our memories. But if we “become” the old man in Hemingway’s sea; if we “are” Daisy to Fitzgerald’s Gatsby, then literature “is” who we are, or at least, points to whom we might have been, or can be—it is the indelible yardstick against which we measure ourselves. Author Francis Hamit’s “Shenandoah Spy,” a novel of historical fiction based on the true story of Belle Boyd, a legendary female spy for the Confederacy during America’s Civil War, was one of those stories that metamorphosed into a subjective experience for me, and to such an extent that it was surprising to me—surprising and satisfying. Let me tell you why.

                Although I often read and write about history, the Civil War of the United States is not high on my list of subjects; not because it isn’t fascinating in its own right, but rather that it holds less weight for me than other histories such as that of America’s native people, the Great Depression, and World War II. My interest in “Shenandoah Spy,” however was sparked by a social media interchange with its author, an informed and shrewd interchange on his part in response to a posting I submitted on Facebook on the 35^th anniversary of the Kent State Shootings in protest against the Vietnam War. I looked him up and discovered that he has an extensive background in military intelligence and espionage, a résumé I thought he might put to good use in the stories about which he writes. I ordered the book because of its “first-born” chronology in his body of work rather than its subject. But somewhere deep inside me, I also wanted to be “swayed” by a good Civil War story; I wanted to be brought into the fold. Hamit did not disappoint me on that point in “Shenandoah Spy.”

                How is it that in 2015, a reader in the senior years of her life (me) can be transported to a time a century-and-a-half ago and relate to a heroine of only seventeen-years-of-age (Belle Boyd)? The answer is found in Hamit’s presentation of Belle Boyd’s story. He makes room for the reader in the words. He writes with such intimacy and immediacy that it invites the reader to wonder how he/she would have behaved in Boyd’s stead. The reader suffers Boyd’s vulnerabilities; staggers in her exploits; quakes in her boots. And just as importantly for me, this author instilled in me a desire to pay closer attention to this era of my country’s history.   

                Despite my delight in “Shenandoah Spy,” conversely, an aspect of it niggles at my consciousness. Given that it takes place during, and in response to, the “slave-era” of America’s story, a supporting cast of African Americans is to be expected. There can be no such story absent that body of humanity. Hamit isn’t shy about offering a view of the Civil War as one less about “freeing the slaves” and more about other factors, though. The following conversation between characters Brodhead and Strother in the book illustrates this point: ‘“Not for freeing the slaves?” [asks Broadhead]. Strother had to think about it. “In time, on some abstract level, I might be, but this isn’t the way I’d choose to do it. Most people in the South don’t own slaves. They’ve been seduced into this thing by radical elements that wanted to break up the country, and seized upon the activities of the Abolitionists as an excuse.” “And those Abolitionists have stirred up the war fever on this side. Radicals on both sides have pushed this war into being. It could have been prevented.” Brodhead gestured with his hands as if to illustrate the futility of it all. Strother nodded. “The rich and privileged wanted a war and the rest of us will pay for it.”’

                In an excerpt further on in the story, Strother states. ‘“…Most Negroes [in the south] ain’t that displeased with their lot in life. ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ was a masterful load of horse manure when it came to representing the usual situation. You don’t abuse slaves, any more than you would a horse or a cow. It’s not good business and people frown on it. House servants especially have an easy life. They become a part of the family.”’ In that vein, Belle Boyd submits that the Yankees “…exaggerate the colored folks capacity and desire for freedom – those that want it find a way to buy themselves free.”’ Her personal slave Eliza is depicted as one such happy “servant.” Not only does Eliza aid and abet Boyd willingly in her daily life and her spying missions, she is depicted as a personal “friend” rather than as a slave of her mistress. Of course, Hamit puts forth the then self-serving point of view of southerners in his treatise. Following Solomon Northrup’s true story of cruelty suffered at the hands of a slave-owner in “Twelve Years a Slave” that found light in recent times, the portrayal of the master/slave relationship in “Shenandoah Spy” is difficult to reconcile. I suppose, as in any other human enterprise, the minutiae of America’s Civil War ranged every possibility available at the time. Many of those fine points are to be found in “Shenandoah Spy.” It is good reading.

***

Linda Lee Greene’s novel “Guardians and Other Angels” is at http://goo.gl/imUwKO. Her novel “Jesus Gandhi Oma Mae Adams,” co-authored with Debra Shiveley Welch, is at http://amzn.to/VazHFG. Her artwork is on view online at www.gallery-llgreene.com. Her Twitter handle is @LLGreeneAuthor.        

The Sound of Rain on a Metal Roof

Opening onto the sliding glass doors of my bedroom is what is advertised as a three-season room; I call it my solarium because it is a room of windows as much as of walls, a lovely and a light-filled space facing due south – ideal for plants tucked among wicker chairs and wrought-iron pieces in warm weather, but lethally hot for human beings.  The windows are single-paned and drafty, and ill-fitting actually, and the walls and roof are aluminum-clad sheets encasing slabs of Styrofoam.  In winter it is a freezing space suitable for keeping hanging slabs of beef, if I were of a mind to use it as a slaughter-house storage space.  In fact, the last two weeks of April and the first two weeks of September are the only times of year during which it is fit for living beings of the primate variety.  All of the other 48 weeks of the year, it is either too cold or too hot to be functional. 

                My solarium was already a part of the house when I bought it, and for the first couple of years of my residency, I assiduously applied myself to making it a part of my daily living space.  I outfitted it with plush lounge chairs and matching ottomans; swathed its windows with luxurious draperies, and installed a strategically positioned television set, as well as a rotating fan.  The central air conditioning would reach the room, huffing and puffing, after several hours of trying, and at best the fan assisted feebly in this effort.  In addition to the aforementioned drawbacks, the solarium overlooks an exceedingly busy, and therefore, noisy three-lane highway, a byway for cars and trucks, even semi-trucks, of every variety – from early morning to late evening Mondays through Fridays, it competes with any raceway anywhere on earth.  While either swabbing my sweaty face with a handkerchief or cloaking my shivering body in an afghan, above the din of the traffic that is unimpeded by the thin walls and inadequate windows, I needed the keen ears of a canine to hear the television, and at my point in life, my naturally inferior Homo sapiens ears are not what they used to be.  I finally gave up and resolved myself to the fact that my lovely solarium is a primarily useless anteroom to my life that for practical reasons, I keep closed off behind the sliding glass doors.        

                Despite its negative aspects, and not counting its beauty, my solarium has a vital redeeming quality however:  it gains me access to the rain.  Actually, the inspiration for writing this piece this night comes from the rain that is washing the western side and beating on the roof of my metallic solarium at this precise moment.  As I lie here on my bed with my laptop straddling my thighs, the sliding glass doors are open to my solarium, open to the sound of the rain, a sound that carries me back to the rains of my childhood, those rains that are the source of my love of rain.  I will try to take you back there with me. 

                The initial eighteen months, and every weekend and summer of my life until I entered the first grade, was centered on the Southern Ohio farmlife of my maternal grandparents.  Although when a toddler I accompanied my parents and my baby brother to our new home in the city, until we were forced to make roots there with my entrance into school, our “real” life was considered by us to be “down home on the farm.”  I retain a storehouse of memories of my life on the farm, not only of those early days, but extending to my early twenties when everything changed with the illness of my grandfather that put a stop to his farming career, and required relocation to town to gain easier access to his doctors and the hospital. 

My grandparents owned three farms during their working years:  the one that was the place of my birth; the one of which they took possession when I was a preschooler; and the last one to which they moved when I was nearing the end of my teenage years.  It is the second farm that resides most prominently in my memory, a typical farm of the time featuring a red barn and whitewashed chicken houses and raw-wood pig pens (nowadays replaced with other structures, none of them red), and a saltbox farmhouse rising to two-stories within its whitewashed clapboard sides, and capped-off by a pitched tin roof. 

Positioned at the summit of German Hill in Peebles, Adams County, Ohio, its tin-roofed front porch then as now spans the entire width of the house and overlooks the star-wound crater in which a long-ago native society built the Great Serpent Mound.  That view of the crater, preferably taken in while sitting in the porch swing, is the pride and glory of my family, made accessible to us to this day by my Uncle Dean who purchased the farm from my grandparents upon their move to the third farm.  Uncle Dean is pictured here in a recent photo I shot of him while he sat in the porch swing and gazed at the star-wound crater.  The full view of the crater from the porch can be seen as my banner page at https://www.facebook.com/#!/LindaLeeGreeneAuthor .   

From the porch one steps into the front room of the farmhouse, its focal point a chugging wood-burning stove in winter.  Off of this central parlor radiates two bedrooms, a kitchen, and at the back, what used to be a summer kitchen has been converted by Uncle Dean to a combination mud and laundry room, as well as a separate bathroom.  Prior to that time, the toilet facility was gained by a path to a gelid in winter and malodorous in summer outhouse. 

Tucked behind the front entrance of the farmhouse is the door to the staircase that leads to the upper floor, and at the head of the stairs is a small bedroom housing a full-sized bed and a mirror-topped chest of drawers.  I recall some of my cousins being folded cozily into the spacious bottom drawer of that chest in lieu of a bassinette when they were babies.   A doorway in this first bedroom leads to the largest room in the house, now a storage room, but back then, a sleeping room set up with several beds in dormitory fashion, all of them as were all of the several beds in the house, topped with feather-stuffed mattresses.  It was there that my mother, my aunts, my brother, our young cousins and I were crooned to sleep to the sound of the rain dancing on the tin roof of the farmhouse, and as sweet as are all of my recollections of those days, the sweetest of all is the sound of the rain on that roof. 

My solarium, with all of its faults taken into account, is worth its weight in gold to me because on rainy days and nights the sound of the rain against its metal structure transports me back to those times of the soothing rain on the tin roof of my grandparent’s farmhouse, days that are among my happiest, and are the source of some of my most precious memories.

This farm is the backdrop of my latest novel, GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS, a semi-biography of my grandparents, my parents and their siblings spanning 1936 to 1941.  It is a story of the heroism of these ordinary people played out against the bad and the good times of the Great Depression and World War II, a story told in part through firsthand accounts of the times in authentic letters featured in the book, letters written by these same people.  Available in paperback format, or in eBook for your PC, laptop or Kindle, easy access to the novel is gained through clicking onto this URL:  http://www.amazon.com/Guardians-Other-Angels-Linda-Greene/dp/1897512562/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338336762&sr=8-1.  To read excerpts of my current and future books, log onto booksbylindaleegreene.gallery-llgreene.com.

 
To view my online art gallery, log onto www.gallery-llgreene.com