Rum Runner is my first book of fiction. I owe a debt of gratitude to my relatives for the summers I spent on Cape Cod. My maternal grandmother's parents, and her brothers and sisters settled there many decades ago. It was my good fortune to know them and spend time in Hyannis and Hyannis Port most of my life. My grandmother's oldest brother lived to 104. We visited him often and he also came to Worcester to visit us while my grandmother was alive.
While researching and confirming my grandmother's oral history, my daughters encouraged me to write about my own life, which began in 1931. That resulted in my first published work, the memoir, Colored of Course.
Family oral history inspired my second published book, The Roan, and the third, The Earl of Lee Heights.
My mother, born in 1903, was a proud bloomer girl, marching for women's right to vote. Her youngest sister, Evelyn drove their father to many state fairs to compete and win ribbons for his exotic Silkie hens and angora rabbits. It was a handsome model T, hand crank machine that I rode in. She was the only licensed driver in the family and drove us all around New England. Evelyn was also a prize-winning dancer, and in my eyes a "flapper girl" which brings the 1920's close to my heart. It was a delight to embrace the 1920's in this book I hope you will enjoy.
My quest to save oral history resulted in published work in The Journal of The Cape Cod Genealogical Society, Vol 3, No1 Spring 2003 p.70.
