Summer is the season for first jobs....

 

             Although the first official day of summer has yet to arrive, the heat is here. My thoughts turn back to the year I gained my first job other than babysitting, a summer now in the distant past.

 

                The bright, red-lettered “HELP WANTED” sign in the window of Jerry’s Café on the Neosho Square caught my eye the summer when I was sixteen.  My search for my first job hadn’t turned up anything yet so I persuaded my mother to let me go inside to apply.  In those days, my parents had a post office box checked daily among the other errands so she pulled into a parking slot.  I summoned up all the bravado I had in my teenage body, tried to stand tall in my discount store tennis shoes, and walked inside the restaurant.

                I asked about the notice and within minutes, without a resume or long interview, I was hired as a bus girl (yes, bus girl back in those less enlightened Seventies) and occasional waitress.  I had time to rush out to share the new with my waiting parent before hurrying back into the kitchen to put my purse on a shelf and tying on an apron.

                Now just a memory, the space once claimed by the café now a parking lot, Jerry’s Café was an old school, traditional restaurant.  I believe it had operated under other names prior to and at least one more after my brief time there.  There was a counter with stools and tables along the wall with a few scattered down the middle.  A small additional room held a few more.

                There was no on-the-job training.  I went to work immediately, clearing dishes from empty tables then washing them down.  I put everything back in order for the next customer, trundled the bulky cart back to the dish room to unload, then began all over again.  During the lunch rush, that’s all I did.  In slacker moments, I also carried the coffee pot around and topped up cups. 

                The menu offered a variety of food, from simple sandwiches and burgers to other home style favorites.  Each day, a lunch special or two was offered and as I remember, once I had a bite to eat at the end of my shift, the food tasted delicious.

                I worked from 11 am until 2pm on weekdays, from 7 am until 2pm on Sundays.  I watched the waitresses as they worked and learned so that in a pinch, I could also wait tables. 

                Those days were a learning experience for me in many ways and I still have a photograph taken on my first payday with the money from my check fanned out with pride.  The job lasted until my dad wanted to take the family on a vacation trip.  He suggested I ask for the week off and I did but my boss, considering how brief I had been employed and how soon school loomed straight ahead, let me go instead.

                Fast forward many summers ahead.  I’m no longer a sixteen-year-old girl heady with the wonder and power of my first job. The one constant is now writing.  I will always write, no matter where I work or whether or not I have a vacation period.  So in between it all, I’ll be writing and hoping for one runaway bestseller that could change my status quo again.

               

A humble beginning

 

                Every story has a beginning. Sometimes it’s humble and often, we may not even realize what we might start. I’m sometimes asked how I became a writer, an author. There were steps to the journey, like any other, and I decided at an early age I wanted to tell stories. Before I could write, I dictated little tales to my mother and illustrated them in crayon. At the age of nine, after meeting a family patriarch at a family reunion, I wrote a poem about pioneers. I had learned that branch of my family arrived in my hometown of St. Joseph, Missouri via wagon train. The plan had been to go westward, all the way to Oregon or California. It might have been the fact my great-great-great grandmother gave birth to my great-grandfather’s father in St. Joseph or maybe she just quietly informed her husband she would go no further. The family stayed in the new, growing city on the banks of the Missouri River and prospered.

                So, I wrote a poem and because the local newspaper featured a page for children to share their talents on Saturday mornings, I mailed it to them. Some of my cousins had been featured with artwork but I never could draw so I wrote. They used my poem, which thrilled me, but after my beloved grandfather, Pop, passed away, a clipping of the poem was laid to rest with him. Even at such a young age, I saw a power in words.

                My fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Berryman, had been a country school teacher early in her career. Although I attended a big, brick elementary school catering from kindergarten through eighth grade, she applied many of the teaching methods she had learned. If a student excelled in a subject, we taught others. I had down time so I began writing a novel in the back of my blue pressed cardboard binder. Pages of it still exist, in my late mother’s desk drawers. For each page of text, I created an illustration.

 

 

                By then, I read many adult books, each approved by my mother. My favorite was Margaret Mitchell’s classic “Gone With The Wind.”  I had worn out her book-of-the-month copy and my dad presented me with my own copy on my birthday. My first effort at a novel was titled “Goodbye Dixie” and was set on a plantation during the Civil War.

                I decided then I wanted to become an author. During my teens I scribbled and managed place in a short story contest at my high school. One of my English teachers and favorite instructors throughout my life, Mr. Gary Sims, encouraged my dreams. He once read an essay to the class I had written and told them it was mine after he read it. I still have the paper with his comments inked in red across the top : “100%. Beautifully written.” His encouragement and the opportunity to attend a young writer’s seminar at Pittsburg State University in nearby Kansas (I have another teacher, Mrs. Mildred Stover to thank for that one) fueled my dreams.

                In college I was on the staff of the campus newspaper and worked my way up to share the editor title with another student. I also was on the staff of the literary magazine and once I transferred to a four-year university, I also won a prize for my fiction. One of my professors asked me during a one-on-one conference what I planned to do after graduation. I laughed and said I’d like to write but I probably lacked the talent. Dr. Ackiss informed me I had the potential but whether or not I would become a writer or author was up to me.

                After receiving my degree, I worked at a local fast-food restaurant, did some substitute teaching, volunteered at the neighborhood elementary school, and wrote. My next break came when my college creative writing teacher, Kay Hively, gave my name to the local radio station on request. They sought an advertising copywriter. Her recommendation netted me an interview and I was asked to write sample ads. I figured the chance would end there but I was hired. During my radio years, as I moved through every facet of the business, writing, interviewing notables including state senators, country music stars, and the US Attorney General. Some ads I wrote for the Missouri Beef Industry council also played on other stations.

     I wrote and managed to sell some of my work. I often sent my stores to my uncle Darrell Neely to read and he, too, encouraged my dreams. My dad had been proud and expected great things from the time I wrote the first novel. Although it wasn’t the best writing, he noted how many fifth graders write a novel in the back of their binder?

                Unfortunately, one summer’s day my job was eliminated and my confidence in writing lagged as I found employment to pay my bills. I still wrote. I eventually ended up at Wal-Mart where I wrote a few pieces for their corporate newsletter, unheard of from a lowly cashier.

                As people often do, I got married. When I informed my husband I dabbled in writing, he encouraged my passion. I wrote and sold some articles. My long-time dream had been to write novels and I realized with two twin toddlers underfoot, if I didn’t get started, I might never do it. So I did. My husband was my cheerleader, coach, and first beta reader. I bounced ideas off of him and after about eighty rejections from publishers and agents, I signed my first contract.

                I worried I might be a one-hit wonder but my uncle by marriage, Wayne Rigdon, assured me that wouldn’t be the case. Today, I have around sixty titles published with several publishing companies including The Wild Rose Press, World Castle Publishing, and Evernight Publishing. I’ve also in the past been a part of Champagne Books, the defunct Rebel Ink Press, and the now closed CleanReads (formerly Astraea Press).

                That’s my beginning and there’s yet to be an end. I hope there never will be.

A family story to share

 

Earlier this week, on April 15, I noted a family milestone and it had nothing to do with taxes.

Thomas Jefferson Lewis, my great-great-grandfather was born on that day in 1850.  Before we get to him, I want to share about one of his sons, Paul Lewis, who played a role in my lifelong interest in family history.

 

Thomas Jefferson Lewis Sr with his wife, early 1920's (he died in 1925

I met the man just once but our time together has proved to be significant,

and has steered the course of my life into the past. At a multi-generational

family reunion where the stories flowed faster than the creek waters beside our

pavilion and fried chicken filled our bellies, my great-great uncle Paul, my

great-grandfathers brother, fired my imagination and set me on a path leading

backward into history. At the time, he was one of the oldest living members of

the Lewis family, my maternal grandmothers family and when my mother introduced

us, he told her to leave me with him for a while. So, she did.

 

I don’t know what he saw in me that day that was any different than the

dozen or more other children running around the park, but I sat on the grass at

his feet and listened as he talked about the family history. Although I don’t

recall every word he said, I do remember much of what he said. He talked about

his father who had been acting sheriff of Buchanan County when outlaw Jesse

James died, and about his grandparents who made the pioneer trek into Missouri.

 

They were headed for California when they ended up in St. Joseph, Missouri but

when their seventh son, Thomas Jefferson Lewis, made his appearance on April 15,

1850, they stayed. Maybe it was originally for the season, and maybe not, but

they settled down and put their roots into Missouri soil.

By the time they reached St. Joe, the Lewis family had already trekked

across the ocean from Belfast to the colony of Virginia. They homesteaded there

long before the American Revolution but when that war erupted, they fought for

the fledgling nation and some of my ancestor died for it as well. As the years

passed and the country expanded westward, they moved into Kentucky, and lived

there for a few generations before packing up once more to spend some time in

Sangamon County, Illinois. From there, they were bound for California (or some

say it might have been Oregon) but they stopped in St. Joe.

 

Uncle Paul’s stories fired my imagination. At nine, I already had a

passion for the past. When other little girls played house, I preferred to take

it a step farther and play what I called olden days or wagon train. When I learned my own

folks had been pioneers a few generations back, I was hooked for a lifetime of

pursuing genealogy.

 

From the few scraps of information I inherited, over the years I’ve traced

the Lewis family line back into the 1700s. Their story is a rich historical

tapestry filled with triumphs and tragedies, a personal version of the American

story.

 

A few years ago, when my daughters and I made a trek to northern Virginia, we passed through the country where my ancestors first settled in the New World. I delighted in viewing the country they called home and trying to imagine it as it once was.

During our travels, we came across many highways designated as memorials

in several states. In Virginia, we found ourselves traveling down the John

Lewis Memorial Highway, then also on the Andrew Lewis Memorial Highway. John

Lewis is a direct ancestor of ours and Andrew is his brother. We passed

through Lewis County in Virginia, also named for another of our Lewis kin. As

the saying goes, I felt like I was walking in tall cotton that day.

 

My maternal grandfather also came from Virginia but from the southwest

corner of the state. Other ancestors on various branches of my family tree also

have a connection to Virginia or one of the other states we traveled through in

the region.

 

The Lewis history is far too detailed and diverse to share in a single

column but my Missouri branch began in April 1950, when my great-great

grandfather was born in St. Joseph, Missouri to pioneers who decided they’d come 

far enough.