Back story

 

In writing fiction, there’s often a back story, the events and background that shaped a character or helped to create a situation.  Like everyone else, I have a back story too.

                Our blue-collar working-class neighborhood equaled the world to us in my childhood.  Those narrow streets lined with tired, worn houses provided shelter and a familiar refuge.  We shopped at the small markets within a few block radius, went to school, to church, and to our relatives, most of which lived within the same area.  St. Joseph’s Hospital – known in the ‘hood and community as “Sisters” – was where I was born and where the old folks went to die.

                Growing up there my life seemed destined to follow a particular path.  I’d grow up, go to the same high school my mother attended, graduate and get married to a boy from the neighborhood.  He’d work at the brewery a few blocks away, the same one with the whistle everyone used to keep track of time.  Or maybe he’d work at the packing house like my dad did or another factory or at Quaker Oats or if he were really a go-getter, he might become a postman like my uncle.

                I’d work, maybe in a nice office somewhere or if not, I’d be a waitress or sew hatbands onto men’s hats at the same sweatshop where my grandma worked.  Or I could wash the hospital’s dirty laundry including the priest’s smalls like my Granny.  If we could, maybe I’d be able to quit work when the inevitable kids came and if not, they’d go to Granny’s just like I did from the age of two months until school began for me.  The years would pass, the kids would grow and I’d get old, living the same lifestyle that nurtured me.  I’d go from girl to Granny myself in a few decades but it would be the natural order of things, the way of it all.

                Except I never quite fit the pattern.  Somehow from birth I was never quite the perfect little girl with ringlet curls and sweet demeanor my mother expected and as I grew up, I dreamed of another life, somewhere else and something different.

      I may have left the old neighborhood behind but it lives within me, baggage that serves me well.  Along with the teachings of my family members, especially my Granny, I have the stubborn, fighting spirit that brought me here to keep me moving into the future.

                Girls from my old neighborhood, from my rough river rat hometown aren’t supposed to grow up and write novels or anything else.

                But one of my grandfather’s handed down a saying, “there is no such word as ‘can’t’” and so I grew up believing I could.  My father encouraged me to soar beyond the confines of the nest, to try my hand at writing and anything else tempting my fancy.  When I headed to college, he applauded and when I ran out of money before starting my senior year, he funded it.  

                If I hadn’t lived my back story, I probably couldn’t write the stories I do.  If I hadn’t left home and visited other places, maybe I wouldn’t be able to write the stories.  But the background, the neighborhood remains a foundation.  Instead of becoming my life, my growing up turned into my springboard to farther places and my past remains a touchstone.  I couldn’t write the stories without it either.

                Someone once made a lot of money by writing a book claiming everything he learned was in kindergarten.  I wouldn’t go as far to say I learned everything in the neighborhood which cradled me but I learned a lot and it travels along with me, baggage of my soul.

 

Gone With The Wind - tornado version

April 24, 1975

 

                Until late in the day, that Thursday was ordinary.  I went to school, came home, and enjoyed the heat.  Temperatures soared warm, then even hot.  The sunshine from earlier vanished under a light, overcast sky and I noticed the absence of wind before supper.  I’ll never forget supper that evening, the last in the home our family had shared since moving to Neosho.  We had hamburger steaks with creamed peas and new potatoes.  For dessert, we enjoyed a slice of a chocolate Bundt cake and after the meal, my mother settled down to cut out the fabric for a new dress she planned to make me.  The weather forecast at six mentioned the chance of storms but at that point I don’t recall any extreme alarm but I was anxious.  Growing up, my Granny feared all storms and she’d infected me a little although my parents had worked with me until I wasn’t so afraid.  I’d come to enjoy a good thunderstorm viewed from the safety of the front porch back in St. Joseph but the air seemed different that evening.

                At the time we lived at the mobile home park located at the corner of Neosho Boulevard and Daugherty Road, just outside the city limits.  We’d ended up there because my dad wasn’t sure how long we might stay and if his job with the USDA transferred him elsewhere, he wanted to be mobile.  After supper, I couldn’t concentrate on writing a letter to my cousin back home so I went outside.  I watched as many of the park’s residents headed out and studied the sky.  I wandered back inside and out, catching Joplin weatherman Lee George on television.  He indicated concern was in order and talked about tornadoes.  I can’t recall the exact time but I do remember at one point he emphasized it was not a watch but a tornado warning.  Things have changed a lot in the weather world over the past thirty-odd years and as many warnings weren’t issued the way they are today. 

                My dad worked nights as a USDA poultry inspector and usually slept until mid-evening but he got up early.  By then, I was a nervous wreck and as we monitored the weather with both the television and police scanner, my mom decided we should leave to be safe.  My dad wanted to finish getting ready for work and eventually, not very long before the tornado roared into town, my mother insisted we go with her to seek shelter somewhere else.  We did and as we drove down Neosho Boulevard, it was eerie.  The sky to the west was overcast and to the north, dark thunderheads were bright with lightning.  We headed for the Laundromat just off Harmony Street because we really didn’t know where else to go.  The storm hit with fury not long after we arrived. 

                Outside it grew dark as midnight as we crawled beneath the heavy laundry folding tables for protection.  Winds howled and lashed gravel against the plate glass front windows.  Sometimes we could hear the shrieking emergency sirens and sometimes not as the noise drowned all else.  One of the sirens we could hear at times was a police officer parked in the center of the nearby intersection using the system on his patrol car.  As soon as the storm ended, we rushed to the car to head home to see what had happened.  Although we left with hopes our home had been spared and my father uninjured, I soon realized something terrible had taken place.

                There was a certain point along Neosho Boulevard where I had always been able to spot the park and when we reached it, I saw nothing but a cluster of emergency lights at the corner.  Although at thirteen, I hoped it might be an accident, I knew it was much worse.  We parked at one of the businesses located along the access road and walked the rest of the way.  Power lines were down and still live.  Although my mother urged me to stay at the car with my younger brother, I refused and we walked into what remained of our home together.  Nothing remained but piles of rubble scattered in crazy patterns by the storm.  Some of the vehicles were flipped or buried under debris. 

                The time from when we entered to when we found my father, injured but alive as he walked back into the trailer park after a search to find us, still ranks among the longest I’ve ever experienced although it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes at most.  Our reunion was filmed by news crews and aired nationwide but at that moment, I didn’t care.

                Our ordeal continued but although we lacked a home, had lost most of our possessions, spent day picking through the rubble to salvage what we could, and my father spent some time in the hospital, we survived.  With the help of a lot of people, far too many to name, we recovered and moved forward – and we stayed in Neosho, a good place to be.

 

The beginning or where it all started

When I first sat down to write a novel, I collected the supplies that I needed – wide-lined notebook paper, a blue cardboard three-ring binder, and a good ink pen. I reserved space in the back of that binder and began writing my story of three sisters in the American South during the Civil War. For each page of text that I wrote, I penned a corresponding page with an original drawing to depict the ongoing action. I worked hard on my magnum opus, stealing time away from spelling, arithmetic, and social studies to write. When my work, titled Good-bye, Dixie!, was complete, I carried it home to my parents with pride. I was in the fifth grade. That first novel never saw publication but it still holds a place of honor in a bottom desk drawer at my mother’s house. And, while my childish scrawls tell a basic story, much of what I wrote is amusing to an adult eye. I have a fond spot in my heart, however, because without “Good-bye Dixie”, I might not be a writer.

From those days in that second floor classroom at Webster Elementary School in my hometown of St. Joseph, Missouri, best known for the Pony Express and Jesse James, to the day last summer when Champagne Books accepted my romantic suspense novel, Kinfolk, I did a lot of living and learning. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I learned to hone my craft, to use my apparent natural gift with words to write things people wanted to read.

Beginnings are most often humble and the most important lesson I learned as a writer is never give up. Write onward and upward to reach your dream!

That humble start led to all of this:

 

Books and novellas – Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

 

1.       Upcoming May 2021 – A Cure For Love (Evernight Publishing)

2.       Still Waters Run Deeper (Evernight)

3.       Canaan’s Land – World Castle Publishing (also paperback)

4.       Scarred Santa – Clean Reads

5.       Coal Black Blues – Evernight

6.       Slattery’s Sin – World Castle (also paperback)

7.       Barefoot Bride – Evernight

8.       Cam’s Witness – World Castle Publishing (also paperback and hardback)

9.       Saving The Sin Eater – World Castle (also paperback)

10.   Third Time The Charm – Evernight

11.   Fire Rescue – Evernight

12.   Callahan’s Fate – Evernight

13.   Johnny Gator – Evernight

14.   Tidings of Comfort and Joy  - Clean Reads

15.   Ronan’s Blood – Clean Reads

16.   Dion’s Desire – Evernight

17.   Carnival Glass – Evernight

18.   Gray’s Good Samaritan – Clean Reads

19.   Ryker’s Justice – Evernight

20.   The Comanche Vampire – Evernight

21.   Jove’s Passion – Evernight

22.   Quite The Catch – Evernight

23.   The School Teacher’s Scandal – Clean Reads

24.   Pink Neon Dreams – Evernight

25.   Devlin’s Grace – Evernight

26.   Quinn’s Deirdre – Evernight

27.   Byrd’s Desire – Evernight

28.   The Courtship of Ebenezer Scrooge – Clean Reads

29.   Stranger Danger – Evernight

30.   Cat’s Patient Heart – KDP

31.   Will’s Way – KDP

32.   The Widow’s End – Clean Reads

33.   Urban Renewal – Champagne Books

34.   Movie Star Magic – Evernight

35.   An Emerald Heart – Evernight

36.   Red In The Hood – Evernight

37.   Marriage Cure and sequel What Fills The Heart – Clean Reads

38.   Love Tattoo – Evernight – first of a 4 part series

39.   Love Scars – book 2

40.   Love Knots – book 3

41.   Love Shadows – book 4

42.   A Time To Love – Champagne Books (also paperback)

43.   Kinfolk  - Champagne Books (paperback)

 

Patrice Wayne historical romance titles – all Evernight Publishing

1.       A Desperate Destiny

2.       Dearest Love: Do You Remember

3.       The Aviator’s Angel

4.       Bette’s Soldier

5.       Valley So Low