Spinning Wheel in the Corner

 My late mother-in-law, Elaine, was a weaver. A room in my in-laws’ four-bedroom house was set aside as her “loom room.” Inside were shelves to hold boxes and boxes of a wide variety of yarns and a large loom that was probably five feet wide and about as tall.

I never saw her working that big loom where she made area rugs, but my husband remembers falling asleep to the sound of the foot pedals and the clank of the heddle frames as she worked after the children were in bed. What she worked on when I joined the family was a table loom that was always set up for making placemats. A set of eight in brown, rust, and gold yarn was our wedding present.

Also involved with weaving was spinning the yarn. Elaine often said this process was her favorite part because she often bought raw wool (they lived in Anaheim, CA, so I’m not sure where she found it) and dyed it herself. She found the process of using a spinning wheel to stretch and twist the wool into yarn soothing. I remember seeing wall hangings she’d made where the yarn was the shape we all know but it also contained small sections where it puffed out. The picture below is her wheel that sits in a corner of our upstairs room. My sister-in-law has her tabletop loom.

Spinning and weaving wasn’t part of my childhood, but I remember my mom talking about a grandmother back in Missouri who spun wool. From the History Myths Debunked blog, the practice of spinning and weaving and these implements being in every household stopped being true after the early years in Colonial America. Importing fabric from England proved cheaper…unless you raised your own sheep or had access to raw wool and lived on the frontier, where shipping costs would make the yardage less of a bargain.

How many of you have memories of seeing a loom or spinning wheel in a grandparent’s house?

A story in my backlist featured a sheep rancher who also a weaver.

A Vow for Christmas, part of the Spinster Mail-Order Brides series

In the three years since his beloved wife died, rancher Chad Rutherford has done the best for his family. But with his sister leaving the family ranch to get married, he needs to find someone to keep house and tend his kids so he places an ad for a mail-order bride.

Left on her own by her brother’s murder, spinster Vika Carmichael must find a way to life. An ad for a mail-order bride from a widower with small children seems like the perfect fit. Until she arrives in Gunnison, Colorado Territory, and wonders if room for her exists in their hearts.

Will two proud individuals find a way to work together, or will their marriage vow be broken before Christmas?

Amazon link and in KU  

Book Review: Hearts West by Chris Enss

 

A source that I have found useful when writing mail-order bride stories is this slim volume subtitled True Stories of Mail-Order Brides on the Frontier. The premise of why the author wrote the book is sweet: she didn’t have a date for the Junior-Senior Prom and advertised that fact in the high school newspaper. The ad set out a meeting place and fourteen other girls in the same situation showed up. The one guy who showed up was looking for a different meeting.

The irony here is how the ratio was switched from the late 19th century when American frontier towns experienced a minimum of fifteen men (often as high as fifty) to one woman. An enterprising businessman, Leslie Fraser Duncan, started the Matrimonial News in England in 1870, then opened offices in San Francisco and Kansas City, Missouri, the following year. For a set fee, men could advertise for a wife with anonymity, and the newspaper would facilitate correspondence with women who responded. The goal of the newspaper was stated as: “To cultivate the noble aim of life and help men and women into a state of bliss is our aim.”

The weekly newspaper remained in print through the 1890s, although toward the end, some of the ads were merely pranks. But the newspaper was successful enough to spawn many other similar publications. Each operated in a slightly different way, with some covering regional areas.  

Some women had more time to prepare for the eventual match and would sit for photographs that could be included in a letter to a prospective mate. Others were in a hurry to leave a bad situation, so they responded to several ads and possibly matched with the first man who replied.

The book includes stories of individual women, why they responded to such ads, and the outcome. A few examples of the ads are included.  I value the book because I learned that a wide variety of individuals at various stages of success used these publications which were the early version of ads in the contemporary personals column.

In my forthcoming novella, Triese, part of the Rescue Me Mail-Order Brides multi-author series, she fits into the “in a hurry” category.

Triese O’Hara watches as her father’s newspaper office is vandalized, and he’s beaten and hauled away with the thugs stating they’ll bury him. She needs to disappear far away and with a different last name to escape detection. But she vows to make the man responsible pay.

Sheriff Paxon Waldemarr struggles to control the lawless element in Laramie, Wyoming Territory. After a tragedy, he becomes guardian to his young niece and needs a wife to make a home. When he marries his mail order bride, he has no concept of this woman’s determination to avenge her father’s death. If her actions reflect on his career, how will their marriage survive?

Preorder here

Do you think you would have ever sought out such an arrangement to find your wedded spouse?

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A Wealth of Information in Your Backyard

With my most recent novella, A Christmas Tree for Trudel, I wanted to set it near where I live in the southern California mountains. As I started researching, I realized I had the perfect resource at hand. Years earlier, a visit to a local museum introduced me to the wealth of information offered by local historical societies. In my particular case, a year’s membership in the group also earned me a copy of Saga of the San Bernardinos. The book details events in the county from 1769 to 1930 with two epilogues written in 1971 and 1984.

In relating the history of the largest county geographical in the state, the author included:

• ·         Early plats of land ownership
• ·         Original names of towns
• ·         Distances between locations
• ·         Names of settlers (from which can be construed general ethnic groups)
• ·         Types of businesses
• ·         Unusual weather occurrences
• ·         Exceptional events
• ·         Transportation and years introduced
• ·         Costs of goods and services

As I wrote, I had the sense of detailing events in a more personal way about characters who might have been found amongst the builders of the community. If you’re a lover of history, be sure to seek out what local historical societies, and by extension local museums, have to offer.

Blurb for A Christmas for Trudel, book 12 in Mail-Order Brides’ First Christmas multi-author series

1890, Bear Valley, CA

Rancher Gibson Bartleigh travels to Pine Knot to investigate how his younger brother was swindled out of his mining claim. He finds the suspect, businessman Bernard Heinrik, at a poker table and squares off opposite him. Gib goads the man into betting big, staking the mining claim and then ends up with the winning hand and retrieves the deed. Goal achieved, he heads back to the hotel, planning how he’ll leave in the morning and arrive triumphant in Redlands at the family home in time for holiday festivities.

Mail-order bride Trudel Andersen traveled from Los Angeles to Pine Knot to meet up with her fiancé, Mister Heinrik, with whom she’s been corresponding for several months. But he’s a day overdue in meeting her. She waits in the hotel lobby with her lace-making materials and her little dog, Butterscotch. Released from the orphanage two months earlier, Trudel has been on her own and terrified she will always be so.

When Gibson realizes he’s the cause for the lovely lady’s misfortune, he’s stuck with a dilemma. If he confesses what he did, he’ll have to offer the woman a ride back to where she came from. Propriety demands they marry, and both agree it’s only for the duration of the trip. But will forced proximity deepen the relationship into something more?

Amazon link  

I love to hear what you have discovered at a museum in your city. An ecopy of A Christmas for Trudel will be awarded on January 31st at noon to one commenter drawn at random.

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Must Read Christmas Books

 

With the holidays upon us, I sent Captain Cavedweller out to our barn to "haul in the holly" so I could deck the halls. 

One of the red and green storage tubs he carried in holds some of my most favorites treasures - my collection of Christmas books. There are several that I read every year because I love them so much and they have become part of my holiday tradition. 

I thought I'd share a few of them with you today. 

Catherine Palmer's Victorian Christmas stories are wonderful and transport me back to another time. This collection holds four of my favorites.

A Victorian Christmas Quilt
A Victorian Christmas Tea
A Victorian Christmas Cottage
A Victorian Christmas Keepsake (my absolute favorite of all the Christmas books she's written)

Available on Amazon

The Christkindl's Gift by Kathleen Morgan is such a great story and one I eagerly read each December. This story has a grieving widow, a meddling father-in-law, adorable children, and a wounded stranger with an awesome Scottish brogue. What could be better?

Available on Amazon

Pony Express Christmas is destined to grab onto your heart. It's the story of a Pony Express rider and his encounter with a man and his son in a prairie blizzard. 

Available on Amazon

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If you'd like to add a few of my books to your collection of sweet Christmas romances, I have two on sale today! 

The Hardman Holidays Boxed Set includes the first three books in my Hardman Holidays series and is on sale for 99 cents this week. 

This boxed set contains three full-length historical romances from the Hardman Holidays series including The Christmas Bargain, The Christmas Token, and The Christmas Calamity. Wholesome and heartwarming, each book offers messages of love and faith, family and hope, with plenty of humor and Christmas cheer.

♥ The Christmas Bargain - Luke Granger might own Hardman’s bank and the fanciest house in the Eastern Oregon town, but he’d much rather be outside riding his horses or wrangling his herd of cattle than keeping his account books straight. In a strange, unsettling turn of events, he hesitantly accepts a farmer’s daughter instead of money to cover a loan. If the man hadn’t threatened to sell her to the saloon owner, Luke would have refused to take her. He has no idea what to do with shy, lovely Filly or their marriage of convenience, but he’s about to get far more than he bargained for.

♥ The Christmas Token - Blake Stratton enjoys a simple existence in the small western town of Hardman as a carpenter. With honest work and loyal friends, his life is nearly perfect, at least until the day Ginny Granger arrives, setting him on his ear and upending his life. Infuriated by her meddling presence, he’s further exasperated to discover he isn’t immune to her considerable charms.

♥ The Christmas Calamity - Dependable and solid, Arlan Guthry relishes his orderly life as a banker’s assistant in the small town of Hardman, Oregon. He has good friends, a great job, and the possibility of marriage to the town’s schoolteacher. His uncluttered world tilts off kilter when the beautiful and enigmatic prestidigitator Alexandra Janowski arrives in town, spinning magic and trouble in her wake as the holiday season approaches.

Holiday Hope is on also on sale for just 99 cents for a limited time! It's the first book in my new Holiday Express series!

Left alone in the world after losing her parents, Cora Lee Schuster travels across the country to the newly-established town of Holiday, Oregon, to become a mail-order bride. She arrives in town to be greeted by her future father-in-law with her betrothed nowhere to be found. When it becomes obvious her reluctant groom-to-be has no intention of showing up at the family ranch where she’s staying, Cora Lee must decide if she’ll follow her head or heart.

Jace Coleman has loved trains since the first time he rode on one as a boy. Now, he spends his days as an engineer driving the Holiday Express line on a new engine named Hope. When a mail-order bride turns up at his father’s ranch to wed his brother, Jace has an idea his meddling father has tried his hand at matchmaking. The longer Cora Lee stays at the ranch, the harder Jace works to keep from falling for his brother’s intended bride.

Will Jace and Cora Lee discover the gift of hope? Find out in this sweet holiday romance full of memorable characters, warmth, and Christmas cheer.

Holiday Hope is the first book in the Holiday Express series, a collection of heartwarming, wholesome, holiday romances brimming with the spirit of the season.