Walking in the footsteps of our ancestors…

Christy and I just spent three wonderful days in Hot Springs doing the final edits on Whistling Woman. We stayed at a lovely little cabin right on the Appalachian Trail and a short five-minute walk from town. Surrounded by trees, we read the manuscript out loud, made changes–there weren’t that many!–and enjoyed imagining Aunt Bessie walking down Bridge Street when she was a young woman. She was twenty-one when she moved with her new husband Fletcher Elliott to Old Fort where they lived with his parents until they’d saved enough money to purchase some land of their own. But that’s another story, or as Paul Harvey said, “the rest of the story!”

A few more pictures to give you a feel for the place!

   

   

 

Hmm…I guess I should’ve added captions. Going from the top row, left to right, that’s the cabin from the road, the front porch where we worked on the first half of the book, the dining room where we moved when the weather got cold the next day to do the second half of the book, the living room, the kitchen, and the little sun room.

The cabin was perfect and we both hope to go back when we start promoting the book. And, of course, the town of Hot Springs, as always, made us both feel as if we were walking in the footsteps of our ancestors. Not just Aunt Bessie, but Papa, Mama, Roy, Loney, Green, Thee, and Frances Ann, or Jack as my great-grandfather called her. They were all there back in the 1890’s and early 1900’s when the book takes place and every time we visit, it’s almost as if they’re standing there welcoming us home with open arms, especially Papa and Bessie.