Gypsies in Western Novels by Janice Cole Hopkins

I have traveled quite a bit, and I’ve noticed small bands of gypsies in many of the European countries. This sparked a special interest in their lifestyle, and it’s always been in the back of my mind to write a novel including them. My chance came when I became a part of the multiple-author collection, The Matchmaker & the Mother-In-Law. However, it wasn’t until I chose my book cover from the ones offered that I locked onto the idea. By the time I saw them to select mine, the only one I liked was a Spanish-looking woman. I remembered the gypsies I saw on my trips to Spain, and Carmen’s Wedding Dilemma was born.

 

The gypsies in Spain are called Cale (Kah.lay’). There, as in most places, gypsies have historically experienced prejudice and discrimination. They might be barred from entering certain establishments, and it was hard for them to find gainful employment if people learned of their backgrounds. All sorts of rumors followed them, saying they were thieves, kidnappers, dishonest, and disreputable as Carmen’s mother tries to explain to her when they first move to Utah:

 

“No, no, no,” Mother rushed into the room shaking her head. “Do not tell her about the gypsies. She doesn’t need to know about them. We all need to forget about that part of our lives.”

“Why, Mamá?” Carmen knew her parents didn’t want to talk about that time in their lives, and they didn’t want Carmen to know about any of it, but she’d never really understood.

“Other people don’t understand the gypsies,” her mother tried to explain again. “They accuse us of all types of criminal activities. A few of them are true for a few gypsies, but certainly not most of them. However, if others know you come from gypsy stock, they won’t like you or have anything to do with you. For your future, for all our futures, we must keep it a secret. Do you understand?”

Carmen nodded her head, and she did understand the words. She just didn’t understand why anyone would hate her because her grandparents and parents had been gypsies at one time. To her, the gypsies were fascinating, and she wanted to know all about them.

 

In the book, although Carmen was born in America, her parents and grandparents had been gypsies in Spain. Carmen’s father was falsely accused of a crime, so he and his family leave their gypsy camp in the middle of the night and sail to America. Carmen was born several months later.

 

Once in the new country, they decide it would be better to hide their gypsy heritage. After the Civil War begins, they move to Utah, her father starts a horse ranch, and he brings horses from Spain. When Carmen becomes a young woman, her parents decide that Mateo should be her matchmaker. After all, who has her best interest at heart more than a girl’s father.

 

Historically, Spain is known for their fine horses. The Andalusian, a famous Spanish breed known for its beauty and versatility, is one of the best-known breeds, but there are others as well as mixes.

The Hispano-Arabe is part Arabian and part Andalusian. Galician horses are an ancient breed believed to have come from the Celts. They are friendly horses who are people-oriented and very protective of their foals, so they make great mothers.

Paso Fina is a versatile breed. They come from several breeds that Christopher Columbus used when he was in the Dominican Republic, including, Barbs, Andalusians, and Spanish Jennets. These horses have a smooth gait, are extremely smart, easily trained, and like people. However, they can be spirited.

Merens are sturdy and strong and make a good all-around choice. They’re known for their endurance either riding or pulling vehicles.

The story continues with Holden Judd’s mother driving him crazy, trying to match him with a woman he has nothing in common with. When he goes to buy horses from Matteo for his livery business, he keeps returning, and it doesn’t take long for him to fall in love with Carmen. However, his mother is determined to break them up, even if she must be secretive about it. Carmen’s Wedding Dilemma is available for Kindle, KU, print, and Audible. Check it out – CLICK HERE.

Do you have a special interest in an ethnic or cultural group? Explain why or why not.

Leave a comment to enter the drawing for a Kindle copy of Carmen’s Wedding Dilemma.

 

The Gypsy Life – Then and Now ~ by Pam Crooks

When I wrote LADY GYPSY a number of years ago, I–as always–surrounded myself with a pile of research books. It’s always been important to me to write a book as historically accurate as possible, not only to give the story realism but to teach my readers a little something, too. After all, if one reads historical romance, one can assume they love the history, too, right?

I read those research books cover to cover, and by the time I immersed myself in Liza and Reese’s story, I had a good feel for Liza as a character. It was easy to weave in tidbits of Gypsy information that helped Liza be as different from Reese (a non-Gypsy, of course) as she could be, shaping the conflict that is important to any well-written storyline. Every book that I write, I hope to make my readers wonder “How will these two ever overcome the obstacles that are keeping them apart? How can they reach their happy-ever-after?”

Trust me, Liza and Reese do. 🙂

It’s believed by some that the Gypsies first originated in Egypt centuries ago, hence their name, though others claim India even earlier than that. Regardless, this nomadic ethnic group came to America in the 1500s as slaves, then eventually migrated across the country living their itinerant lifestyle, becoming such a curiosity that they were often feared and mostly despised. They disdained formal education and community rules, shunned foreigners in their midst, often got into trouble with the law from their thievery and drinking, and generally made nuisances of themselves upon their arrival.

Interestingly, the Gypsies are still alive and thriving today, although some prefer to be called ‘Romani’ instead of Gypsy. They cling to their old traditions, embrace strong family ties, and still travel in large ‘kumpanias‘ or family groups. The high-wheeled wagons have been replaced by campers pulled by pickup trucks and sedans. They snap selfies of themselves and have embraced much of the American and European lifestyles. They believe in God but also believe in ghosts and evil spells. Upon reaching their destinations, they live in Gypsy camps located in the periphery of the city and stay for days at a time, much to the dismay of the local police and city leaders.

The modern-day Gypsy has certainly evolved from the way they lived in the 1800s, as I’ve depicted them. They are better educated, more affluent, less transient.  They labor at jobs like roofing, laying blacktop, or training horses. The older generation insist that the younger marry Gypsies to protect their race. Of course, as is inevitable, the youth follow their own minds, and the bloodlines have become diluted from inter-marrying.

Still, they have a fascinating history that time will never take away.

Until next time . . . Baxt hai sastimos tiri patragi – Romani for “Wishing luck and good health”

Have you ever met a Gypsy?

(My mother has told how they would come to her family’s farm for food, and my grandmother always gave them something to eat.)

Do you or your family have any quirks the rest of us would think a bit strange?

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Liza was born to roam the land with her mother’s people, but she is shamed by the sin that made her forever different.

Reese has set down roots deep in the Nebraska prairie.  His dreams are sure to come true with a new railroad and a proper wife and child.

But Liza is accused unfairly by Reese’s people, and she is forced to flee the security of her world to see safety in his.  When Reese’s careful plans for success are threatened, he must fight to save all he’s ever worked for.

Will it cost him the love he’s found with the beautiful, black-eyed woman with red-gold hair?  His Lady Gypsy?

#kindleunlimited

 

The Fake Ghost Who Started a Real Religion

Kathleen Rice Adams header

Once upon a time in a farmhouse in Hydesville, New York, there lived two sisters who loved to scare family and friends with their vivid imaginations. One day in late March 1848, the girls told a neighbor about spooky happenings in their bedroom. Eager to disprove the girls’ claims that the ghost of a murdered traveling salesman inhabited their home — a tale with which they’d already terrified their mother — the neighbor accompanied fourteen-year-old Maggie Fox and her eleven-year-old sister Kate into their bedroom … where the neighbor, too, was dutifully terrified by the apparently sentient wall-rapping in response to the girls’ questions.

The old fox cottageThus began a religion known as Modern Spiritualism, which is still practiced today.

After having their worst fears seemingly confirmed, the Fox family abandoned the farmhouse, sending Maggie and Kate to live with their older sister, Leah Fox Fish, in Rochester, New York. That may not have been the wisest decision. Rochester was a hotbed of religious activity. Mormonism and the movement that later became Seventh Day Adventism both saw their genesis in the Rochester area.

Upon hearing the tale of the murdered salesman and the unearthly sounds, a group of Rochester residents examined the Fox homestead and found strands of hair and bits of bone in the basement. At a subsequent community meeting, the girls were put to the test: Could they communicate with the dead in Rochester, too?

fox-sisters
The Fox sisters: Left to right: Leah (1814–90), Kate (1838–92), and Maggie (1836–93)

The girls proved they could by summoning raps on the floor. In addition, Leah seemed to communicate with one community leader’s deceased daughter. All three Foxes were escorted into a private room after the demonstration, where they disrobed and were examined for any hints of duplicity. None were found.

Word of the sisters’ uncommon abilities reached Andrew Jackson Davis, later to become known as “John the Baptist of Modern Spiritualism.” Davis claimed to have received a Divine message on the very day the Fox sisters first channeled spirits on the family farm. In response to the dreary Calvinist teachings of the day, people could not wait to adopt a new spiritualism that taught each individual was the master of his own salvation. The spirits of those who had passed on were there to guide them to their ultimate fate, as they, in turn, would guide those who came after them.

The Fox Sisters embarked on a tour of New England and the Midwest, demonstrating their abilities to notables including newspaperman Horace Greeley, author James Fennimore Cooper, and abolitionist William Cullen Bryant. Many accused the girls of perpetrating a hoax, but a growing number of people, convinced by the knocking and apparent communication with dead relatives, embraced the Spiritualist movement.

In 1857, Maggie married explorer Elisha Kent Kane, a man thirteen years her senior who, though he reportedly loved her to distraction, insisted she was a fraud. He died an untimely death shortly after the wedding. Maggie began drinking heavily and abandoned Spiritualism to honor his memory. Kate married a devout Spiritualist leader and continued to develop her skills as a medium, including the use of blank cards upon which messages from the Beyond seemed to appear magically. Among the hazy apparitions she allegedly summoned was Benjamin Franklin’s.

tablelev
The Fox sisters demonstrate their ability to levitate a table (1850).

By the end of the Civil War, more than two million believers had converted to Spiritualism; by 1880, adherents grew to more than eight million.

In 1888, Maggie received $1,500 to tell her story in front of a large audience at the New York Academy of Music. By then doing her best to live a life of sobriety, Maggie confessed to the hoax that started the mass hysteria.

“My sister Katie and myself were very young children when this horrible deception began,” the New York World reported. “At night when we went to bed, we used to tie an apple on a string and move the string up and down, causing the apple to bump on the floor, or we would drop the apple on the floor, making a strange noise every time it would rebound.”

The sisters soon discovered they could manipulate their knuckles, toes, and other joints to make a variety of unusual sounds. Maggie demonstrated by removing her shoe, placing her foot on a small stool, and producing “rapping” noises

“A great many people when they hear the rapping imagine at once that the spirits are touching them,” Maggie said. “It is a very common delusion. Some very wealthy people came to see me some years ago when I lived in Forty-second Street, and I did some rappings for them. I made the spirit rap on the chair and one of the ladies cried out: ‘I feel the spirit tapping me on the shoulder.’ Of course that was pure imagination.”

Spiritualists quickly split on the matter, one camp saying Maggie was a true medium who had been consumed by spirits intent on deceiving humanity, and the other claiming she had sold out her religion because, as a poor widow, she needed the money.

Fox1
The Fox sisters conduct a seance in New York (ca. 1855)

Leah, a popular medium in New York City, disowned her younger sister. Kate hit the bottle with increasing frequency and enthusiasm. The sisters never reconciled, even after Maggie recanted her confession a scant year after she embarrassed the family.

Leah, embittered by her sister’s betrayal, died in 1890. Kate died two years later while on a drinking binge. Maggie followed eight months later, in March 1893. Later that year, the diverse Spiritualist groups came together to found the National Spiritualist Association, the forerunner of the National Spiritualist Association of Churches, which exists today.

Postscript: In 1904, a group of children discovered what appeared to be a skeleton among the ruins of the abandoned and crumbling Fox homestead. A doctor who examined the bones estimated they had been in the basement for about fifty years. Although the find lent some credence to the Fox sisters’ tale about the murdered salesman, the media and society at large continued to scoff at Spiritualists.

Five years later, another doctor examined the bones and pronounced them a clear attempt to defraud. The alleged skeleton was composed of bits and pieces from several bodies, including those belonging to chickens and other animals.

The Fox homestead burned to the ground in September 1955. A marker now stands on the spot where Modern Spiritualism was born:

Upon this site stood the Hydesville Cottage
The home of the Fox Sisters
Through whose mediumship communication
with the Spirit World was established
March 31, 1848
THERE IS NO DEATH
THERE ARE NO DEAD

 

The dearly departed who refuse to depart cause problems for the hero and heroine in “Family Tradition,” one of two related stories that compose Robbing Banks, Stealing Hearts. The book releases Friday, but it’s available for pre-order now at Amazon.com.

 

RBSH_3D_200x300_shadowEveryone should have career at which they excel. At failing to commit crimes, nobody is better than Laredo and Tombstone Hawkins. Maybe they can bumble their way into love.

The Worst Outlaw in the West
Laredo Hawkins has one ambition: to redeem his family’s honor by pulling the first successful bank robbery in the Hawkins clan’s long, disappointing history. Spinster Prudence Barrett is desperate to save her family’s bank from her brother’s reckless investments. A chance encounter between the dime-novel bandit and the old maid may set the pair on a path to infamy…if either can find a map.

Family Tradition
Haunted by his kin’s tradition of spectacular failure, bank robber Tombstone Hawkins is honor-bound to prove his family tree produced at least one bad apple. When carnival fortuneteller Pansy Gilchrist tries to help, she accidentally summons a pair of dishonest-to-goodness ghosts. Getting into the spirit of a crime is one thing…but how do you get the spirits out?

Have you ever encountered a ghost? Tell us about it in the comments! I’ll give an E-BOOK of Robbing Banks, Stealing Hearts to one of today’s commenters.

 

Jodi Thomas: ONE TRUE HEART


jodi-thomas
As I began work on ONE TRUE HEART, I knew my hero would be a very intelligent man living in a little cabin in TwistedOne True Heart2
Creek, a lake community near Harmony in the map in my head.  Wouldn’t it be interesting if this man had a nutty sister who believed she could see the future?  You know the type:  Sweet, but not in the mainstream of anything.  We’ve all got one in our family.  I looked around and didn’t see one in my family so I must be it.

Running through the stories of Harmony I’ve always had a bookstore on the main street.  One night, while I was writing, I noticed a sign in the corner between two over-crowded shelves that advertised palm readings the only night the bookstore was open.  As the stories went along the sign would change.  Once it read:  Fortunes, two hands for the price of
one.

Sooo, in the corners of my mind I knew that one day I’d have to put a fortune teller in Harmony.  Two years ago I was in a fortune teller dolldelightful little second hand store in Denison.  I noticed a beautiful hand-made doll, a fortune teller complete with cards in her hand and dice in her box tied to her waist.  The doll traveled all over Texas with me while I was signing and finally made it home to my desk.

I had so much fun researching gypsy fortune tellers and learned much about the fascinating British Romani people. I especially enjoyed reading about the different types of gypsy wagons. My favorite is the Vardo horse-drawn gypsy wagon and you can view a beautiful one at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LPnAYm9d4g.

While my hero, Drew, is trying to live his normal life, maybe even get a date with a fascinating woman who has returned to Harmony to recover, his little sister is making his life impossible.  You see, she was reading a man’s fortune when the sheriff arrested him for killing his wife.  She’s the only one who believes Johnny Wheeler is innocent, because she didn’t see murder in his past.  Kare defends Johnny and drives him insane while she drags her quiet, reluctant brother into a mystery that might get them all killed.

You’ll have to read to find out…unless you are a fortune teller, of course.

Even after over 40 books, I often feel like I step into a story as if it’s already a place in my mind.  I meet theJodi office 2 people just like my readers do and some nights I stay up writing late because I want to know what is going to happen. I don’t know if I’d believe a fortune teller, but I do believe in the magic of creativity.

I do hope you will enjoy ONE TRUE HEART, so be sure to pre-order your copy at my website at www.jodithomas.com.

You can also pre-order here at Amazon.

I would love to give away an autographed copy of ONE TRUE HEART to one lucky reader. I look forward to chatting with you.

Happy reading!

Jodi Thomas

www.jodithomas.com

www.facebook.com/JodiThomasAuthor

www.twitter.com/jodithomas