Story inspiration from the beauty shop

Fourteen years ago this month, I said a final farewell to my maternal grandmother, Edna Lewis Neely Roberts Ruehmekorf. She always encouraged my writing and I often wish she could see where I have gone in the years since her passing. Maybe she does.

 

In the photo Grandma is shown with my beloved Aunt Janet, who also passed in October.

From the time I scribbled a poem that ended up on the kids’ page of the St. Joseph Gazette on a Saturday morning, my maternal grandmother followed my writings with avid interest.

From the time I scribbled a poem that ended up on the kids’ page of the St. Joseph Gazette on a Saturday morning, my maternal grandmother followed my writings with avid interest.
Grandma offered praise and encouragement for my scribblings, whether they were for school, published somewhere, or shared for review. Once I entered college and set my sights on journalism, I forwarded her a copy of each campus newspaper I was involved with as well as copies of the campus literary magazines at both Crowder College and Missouri Southern. Once at least a few of my submissions began to be accepted in the broader world, I always sent Grandma a copy and she shared it with anyone she could corner.
When she visited Neosho, she always tuned in KBTN during my years there and listened avidly to hear my ads (ones I’d written and often voiced) or my weather or news broadcasts. When I once interviewed L. Ron Hubbard on a half hour program, I sent her a tape.

I always vowed I would write a novel and she believed me. Once my children were born, I spent a few years as a stay-at-home mom and I wrote. I sold a few articles to places like Backwoods Home Magazine, The Ozarks Mountaineer, Country Woman, Country Folk, and Fate. I wrote novels, one after another, and essays. When one of my essays was accepted for inclusion in a nation wide anthology from Adams Media, Classic Christmas, Grandma was delighted. The book was scheduled for an October release so I ordered a copy for my grandmother.

It arrived the day she suffered a stroke so she never saw it. When I headed home to St. Joseph, Missouri, I had the privilege of being with her at her passing. I brought the book along and I slipped it into the casket beside her, explaining to a curious cousin that it was, after all, Grandma’s copy.

I think of my grandmother often, both in May, her birth month, and in October, my birth month and that of many of her grandchildren as well as the month of her exit from this life.

Since that first Christmas anthology, I’ve had my work appear in several national anthologies and a number of my novels have been published as well. I’ve no doubt Grandma would have filled a shelf on the bookcase so she could show off my work to any company she might have entertained.

In some versions of my bio, used within book covers or on guest appearances, I sometimes mention I gained the essence of storytelling from trips with Grandma to the beauty shop for her standing Friday appointment. I listened to the ladies talk about life and love. That may well be one of the inspirations for why I write romance novels.

I think Grandma would agree.