School Days

Regina Scott: In the Footsteps of the Pioneers

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It’s not always possible to step into the shoes of a pioneer. I value a good history book that walks me through the social, political, and geographic changes of the nineteenth century. But my favorite way to research is hands on. Don’t make me read about the various ways to hitch a team of horses to a wagon. Take me out and let me hitch them myself. Don’t tell me how to make butter. Sit me down at a churn and let me make it myself. (And if I get to put it on freshly baked bread warm from the oven with raspberry preserves afterward, even better!)

So, I am blessed to have two living history museums within a short drive of my home. One is a re-creation of Fort Nisqually, the Hudson’s Bay Company outpost on Puget Sound. Though it was originally situated closer to the Nisqually Delta, in present day Dupont, some of the original buildings were moved to a wooded area in Tacoma’s Point Defiance Park, and other facsimiles were added to represent what the fort would have been like in the 1840s.

The other is Pioneer Farm Museum above the Ohop Valley, on the way to Mount Rainier. The clearing surrounded by forest re-creates an 1887 homestead, and two of the cabins date from that era. With live animals and a smithy, you can really get the feel of living on a pioneer farm. You can grind grain, scrub laundry, card wool, and even curl your hair with a curling iron heated down the chimney of an oil lamp.

Here’s a few of the things I’ve learned:

Make your space count. When you have to cut and prepare the logs, lift them into place, put in a chimney, and add a sturdy roof, you don’t build a 2,500-square-foot California split! The inside of some of these cabins is no more than about ten feet square, and the length often depended on the length of the logs available. You might have a loft or a second story, but the main room needs to do duty as parlor, dining room, kitchen, sewing room, and even bedroom.

Learn to scrape. Sugar came in cones rather than sacks. Cinnamon came in sticks. Even laundry only got clean by scrubbing it over something. Those pioneer ladies must have had strong hands, wrists, and arms!

Follow fashion judiciously. One of the first questions I asked one of the reenactors at Fort Nisqually, who was wearing a large-skirted gown from the 1850s, was about whether they employed the big hoop skirts so popular back East. She confided that petticoats were more the thing out West, and I’m not surprised. How would a pioneer lady have navigated those narrow ladders leading up to the sleeping loft or even squeezed through a door in one of those things?

Whatever I learn, I always factor into my books, and The Schoolmarm’s Convenient Marriage, out November 6, is no exception. My heroine’s schoolroom bears a close resemblance to this one from Pioneer Farm.

Alice Dennison travelled across country to start life over as a schoolteacher in Wallin Landing, north of Seattle. No one there knows the humiliation and hurt hidden in her heart. Then a storm forces her to seek shelter with a handsome logger for the night, and suddenly she’s facing marriage or scandal! Again! Jesse Willets had always hoped for a love match like his parents. But he steps up to save Alice’s reputation through a marriage of convenience. When Alice’s past intrudes, they must work together to discover that true love may not be so distant after all.

In celebration of the new release, I’m giving away a copy of Her Frontier Sweethearts (print in the U.S., ebook internationally), which introduces many of the characters in the new book. When feisty Ciara O’Rourke starts a frontier restaurant, someone thrusts a baby at her and disappears. Logger Kit Weatherly will do anything to protect the niece he never knew he had. Can he convince Ciara to take a chance on them both?

To be entered in the drawing, answer this question: How do you prefer to learn about history?

Bio

Regina Scott started writing novels in the third grade. Thankfully for literature as we know it, she didn’t sell her first novel until she learned a bit more about writing. Since her first book was published, her stories have traveled the globe, with translations in many languages including Dutch, German, Italian, and Portuguese. She now has more than sixty-five published works of warm, witty romance, and more than 1 million copies of her books are in reader hands. She currently lives forty-five minutes from the gates of Mount Rainier with her husband of thirty years. Regina Scott has dressed as a Regency dandy, driven four-in-hand, learned to fence, and sailed on a tall ship, all in the name of research, of course. Learn more about her at her website at http://www.reginascott.com

Back to School in the 1800s

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What would life be like if you were an Abecedarian (a child learning their ABCs) in the 1800s? Let’s tackle the subject together.

I’m sure we all have ideas about what we think school would look like based largely on Little House on the Prairie. They got some things right, and some…not so much.

The first surprising fact is that the average child in the mid 1800s didn’t go to school at all. In fact, in many states school was not only elective, it was expensive. The government had not yet stepped in to make school mandatory (though it was in a few states) and tax dollars didn’t pay for it. So, the school buildings were funded by the town by collection and the teacher was paid by the fees charged for each student.

The second thing is that we assume that children went to school until they were seventeen, but that isn’t the case. Regular, one-room school houses were only first through eighth grade. If children wanted an education beyond eighth grade, their parents had to pay for a “high school” which would’ve been a boarding school.

Image from Google

Interestingly, until the mid-late 1800s, all teachers were men. But with western expansion came a boom in the population. Some sites say that by the 1870s, as many as a quarter of the unmarried women had acted as teachers at one point in their lives. But, how could that be… teachers had to be trained, right?

Well… not really. Some states required a certificate, but not all. Many states had rules teachers had to follow, but no rules about education requirements. All that was needed was proof that you had fulfilled your own eighth year of education. At that point, they were only teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and history. They taught the children exactly what they had just finished learning, often for very little pay. Since many of the families living rurally were poor, the only book they could afford to send with their child as a reader was the Bible.

Some areas of the country did two sessions, a summer and a winter. Girls and younger children would attend during summer while the boys were helping in the fields. In winter, boys would go to school, allowing the girls to help with chores during that season. In that way, the family was never left completely without the children to help. School years were roughly 78 days long instead of the current average of 180 days. Later, schools would adhere to the fall, winter, spring schedule they have now, but even so, boys struggled with attendance during the busiest seasons.

By the early 1900s, there were many schools for teachers and across the country large, multi-level school buildings were popping up. Even in the most rural of areas had multi-room, individual grade classes by the thirties. Interestingly though, my father attended a one-room school house until he was in 7th grade, when the local school building was finally finished. Even more interesting, the very school where he attended 1-7th grade is now the place were I vote.

Do you know anyone who attended a one-room school house?

Minnie Freeman & the Schoolchildren’s Blizzard ~ by Pam Crooks

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I’m a Nebraska girl, born and bred. Never lived anywhere else. So when I was browsing through one of my research books on American history, one story in particular, titled “Nebraska’s Fearless Maid,” caught my interest.

The winter of 1888 was brutal for its blizzards, and the one on January 12, 1888, was no different. The relatively warm morning showed no hint of snow, and Minnie Freeman was teaching school like any other day in her small sod schoolhouse in Mira Valley, Nebraska. Mid-afternoon, sudden 45 mph winds came up and blew the door in. As Minnie helped her thirteen pupils bundle up in their coats and hats, raging winds blew the windows in and ripped off the roof. Snow dumped from dark, dense clouds and whirled over the Nebraska and South Dakota prairie, quickly obliterating nearby landmarks.

Minnie could not simply wait out the storm. Her schoolhouse was falling apart, and she had to get the children to safer shelter. Having confiscated a ball of twine from one mischievous boy earlier that day, Minnie tied all the children together in a group, leashing them to her own body. Holding the youngest in her arms, a girl of about five, she set out into the gale-force winds with biting sleet and trudged 3/4 of a mile to the nearest home, all the while coaxing the children to keep walking and not to be afraid.

Minnie Freeman and her students in front of the sod house school.

In truth, exhaustion was setting in for Minnie from the rigors of holding the little girl, constant encouragements to the others, and the very real worries they could get lost. But thankfully, they made it to the farm house and safety.

Temperatures dipped to 40 degrees below zero that night, and the storm raged for twelve hours. Because of the storm’s timing during the school day, and that so many were caught unaware, the blizzard of January 12, 1888, has been dubbed the “Schoolchildren’s Blizzard” and is still remembered to this day.

Unfortunately, for some parents in the area, it would be several days before they could learn if their children survived–and some didn’t.

“I’ve never felt such a wind,” she told a reporter from the Ord Quiz, a local newspaper, shortly after the disaster. “It blew the snow so hard that the flakes stung your face like arrows. All you could see ahead of you was a blinding, blowing sheet of snow.”

Minnie was hailed a hero after the ordeal. Newspapers across the nation picked up her story and celebrated her actions, netting her – get this! – 200 proposals of marriage. School-children as far away as Boston wrote essays in her honor, but perhaps the most enduring accolade was a song and chorus written by William Vincent in her honor.

Sheet music for the Victorian parlor song by the composer William Vincent, “Thirteen Were Saved; Or Nebraska’s Fearless Maid.”

Today, Mira Valley is a ghost town located in north-central Nebraska, near present-day Ord, and Minnie’s heroics is a testament to the selfless dedication teachers show every day.

Have you ever experienced a scary weather-related incident?

The School Mistress – by Tess Thompson

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Hi to all you Petticoats and Pistols readers! I’m thrilled to be guest blogging today. I thought I’d share a little about me and my books and do a giveaway of a paperback of The School Mistress.

I write mostly small-town romances/family sagas, some contemporary and some historical. Almost always, they’re set in the Pacific Northwest. (I’m from Oregon originally and have lived in Seattle for thirty years.) As a writer and readers, my true love are historical novels but I wasn’t sure my contemporary audience would agree. I’d had a lot of success with two small town series set in Oregon and northern California. However, that all changed two years ago with the release of my first Emerson Pass Historical, THE SCHOOL MISTRESS. It and the others in the series have been in the top twenty American historical romances on Amazon for almost two years. I’m delighted, of course! Mostly because that means I get to write more of them.

 

Often readers ask me what inspired a certain book or series. I’m never totally sure how to answer because once the creative process starts, it is easy to forget how you came up with the idea in the first place. However, the origin of Emerson Pass I remember well. One morning about three years ago, I woke up from a dream in which the Barnes family were the main characters. I grabbed my notebook, kept at the side of my bed for this very reason, and wrote down the names, ages, and descriptions of the children as well as Quinn and Alexander. The scene I’d dreamt was of a young woman arriving in a frontier town on the train with snow falling all around her. This is the first scene in the book.

I was in the middle of writing my Cliffside Bay Series, thus I had to set aside the Barnes family for about a year. Finally, in December of 2019, I gave myself a present. I would write THE SCHOOL MISTRESS as a Christmas gift to myself. I didn’t think it would sell well or be a hit at all, but it was something to fill my creative well. It was a book I would like to read!

I was wrong about the hit factor. Readers loved the tale of my courageous schoolteacher and the widower with five children. It was so popular that I committed to writing a story for each of the children. Then, Quinn had two babies, so that made their stories necessary too. At the same time, I decided the descendants of the first characters should have some stories too, thus the contemporary Emerson Pass were born!

I’m about to begin writing the eighth and final book of the series. The seventh comes out September 20th. I feel a little blue saying goodbye to this family I’ve known so well. However, another historical series will release next year with a new family and new love stories.

If you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, the whole series is in there, so you can read them for free!

GIVEAWAY

I’m also giving a paperback copy of THE SCHOOL MISTRESS to one lucky winner. 

Just tell me what your earliest memory of school is.

To enter to win, head to my website and subscribe to my newsletter and then comment to let me know you did it.

You get a free novella just for signing up!

PURCHASE THE SCHOOL MISTRESS HERE

 

The History Behind the Story

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by Kathleen Denly

My upcoming release, Harmony on the Horizon, book three in my Chaparral Hearts series, was inspired by the true life story of San Diego’s first teacher to teach in their first schoolhouse.

 

 

The wooden structure was originally built in 1865 from the scavenged pieces of abandoned homes and businesses left in an area then known as Davis’s Folly (a location visited in my first novel, Waltz in the Wilderness). Today the long, red building is known as The Mason Street Schoolhouse, and has been reconstructed on its original site as part of the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. This structure is featured on the cover of Harmony on the Horizon.

 

It was during a field trip to this park that I first heard the tale of the Mary Chase Walker scandal. Mary Chase Walker was originally from Massachusetts and earned her teaching certification from the Framingham Normal School. The Civil War negatively impacted the ability of eastern school districts to pay their teachers. So when Mary learned of the higher wages being offered teachers in San Francisco, she set sail for California.

 

On arrival in San Francisco, Mary learned that there were more teachers applying for positions than there were positions available in that city. However, San Diego was in immediate need of a teacher and was offering an even higher salary. So, Mary set sail once more and endured a miserable bout of seasickness as she traveled down the California coast. Fortunately, there was a kind, mixed-race stewardess aboard who worked to comfort Mary as best she could and the two formed a close bond.

Mary arrived in San Diego on July 5, 1865. Unfortunately, San Diego is a very brown place in the summer (without today’s modern irrigation solutions) and at that time, it was still a very small town of only a few thousand people spread over thousands of acres. The culture and climate came as something of a shock to Mary who revealed a severe disappointment in her new home when writing her brief memoirs.

Too bad for Mary, things only got worse.

Not long after she began teaching, Mary discovered her stewardess friend was in town. So she invited her friend to dine with her at San Diego’s nicest hotel, the Franklin House. This did not go over well in a town dominated by Southern sympathizers on the heels of the Civil War. Half of the patrons abandoned the establishment on the women’s arrival. Worse, the parents of the town were so incensed that many of them refused to send their children to school so long as Mary continued as teacher.

An emergency meeting of the board was called to determine Mary’s fate as teacher. The records of that meeting were lost in a later fire, so no one currently knows what decision was made at that time. What we do know through other sources is that one member supported keeping the teacher, another supported firing her, and the third was a man named Ephraim Morse. We also know that one month later, Mary was no longer teaching at the schoolhouse, but had taken a position as a tutor for a local family. We also know that shortly thereafter, Ephraim Morse courted and subsequently married Mary.

These are the historical facts, the framework, upon which I built my novel, Harmony on the Horizon. Being a lover of adventure, however, I used my artistic license to throw in the secondary setting of San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, two more main characters, and loads of trouble.

 

This video featuring a quote from the first scene in Harmony on the Horizon gives a hint at some of the trouble I’m referring to:

 

Preorder your copy HERE. 

 

To receive your bonuses, register your preorder HERE 

 

Harmony on the Horizon releases January 4, 2022. To celebrate, I’m offering this giveaway bundle to one winner*:

  • 1 Tote Bag – Harmony on the Horizon
  • 1 Aromatherapy Pendant – with dried  Lavender inside + scent ball
  • 1 Traveler’s Junk Journal – Vintage Reporter Style
  • 1 Lavender Sachet
  • 1 ebook copy of either Waltz in the Wilderness or Sing in the Sunlight – readers’ choice
  • 1 Chaparral Hearts Pen
  • 1 SITS Bookmark
  • 1 HOTH Sticker

 

To enter, leave a comment below letting me know what you think happened during that 1865 board meeting.

 

*Must have a U.S. Mailing address to win. Void where prohibited.

 

Thank you so much for spending time with me today.

To keep up with all my latest news and enjoy more historical tidbits like this one, please join my Kathleen’s Readers’ Club here: http://bit.ly/KRCMemberSignUp

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Fish ponds and school carnivals

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Back during my childhood years, I attended a small country school from first through the eighth grade. The school was small enough teachers had two grades per classroom (first and second, third and fourth, fifth and sixth, seven and eighth).

Every year around the end of February or beginning of March, the CSO (Community School Organization – better known as Parent Teacher Association) would host an indoor carnival in the school gymnasium. For the rural families who attended, it was an evening of games, treats, and a chance to get out and visit before the busyness of spring farm work descended.

I haven’t been able to find much history on school carnivals, other than they’ve been around a long time. They most often serve as a fundraiser for the school for something in particular.

A variety of games and booths were included each year, like the cake walk. Music played and you walked around in a circle on the numbers that had been taped to the floor. When the music stopped, you stood on a number, hoping the person pulling numbers out of a glass jar would pick yours. There were some wonderful bakers in our community and a cake made by them was awesome.

There were ring toss games, a ball toss, and several others to keep the youngsters busy.  My husband remembers a dig in the sand game from his school carnival days which entailed digging through a box of sand for poker chips. The color of the chip determined the type of prize. He, admittedly, watched to see which color garnered the best prizes and dug until he found one.

Tickets were sold at the door, just like for a carnival. I think they sold for something like 20 tickets for $5. Each game required a different number of tickets to play. The cakewalk seems like it took five.

My favorite game at the carnival was the fish pond. Sheets were hung on a rope, making an enclosed area. The students lined up on the outside of it with a “fishing pole,” which was usually a dowel or old broom handle with a piece of yarn attached to it. A clothespin dangled from the end of the string. After surrendering the appropriate number of tickets to play, you lifted up the pole and dropped the end behind the curtain, waiting with great anticipation of what treasure you’d “catch.” There were usually three parents helping with the booth. One who took the tickets and helped get the line over the curtain. One who stood at the side of the curtain and whispered which child was in line. And then the person who chose the prize and attached it to the line.

People donated items and funds for the carnival, and the fish pond seemed to have an assortment of treasures and junk.  Unlike the other games, the fish pond guaranteed a prize. And depending on which parent was helping behind the curtain, sometimes the prizes were so perfect for the child. It was fun because you had no idea what you’d get, but you knew you’d have something unexpected when you felt the tug on the string and pulled the line back over the curtain.

The winter I was eleven, my mom helped organize the carnival. I’d buzzed around the gym with my best friend, playing various games and spending way too many tickets at the cake walk (where she won a cake!), before I wandered over to the fish pond.

I should probably explain that anyone who even remotely knew me knew I liked pretty, girly things even though I was a farm girl who loved (and still loves) all things John Deere.

So I handed over the required tickets, lifted the pole and anxiously waited to see what treasure I’d receive. When the line gently tugged, the parent standing beside me carefully lifted it up over the curtain. A wrinkled brown paper sack hung from the clothespin.

“Be careful,” she warned as I unfastened the pin and opened the sack.

Inside was a little porcelain statue.

My childish heart pitter-pattered in excitement. I loved it! It was pretty, and pink, and so, so perfect for me.

Who cared about my friend’s silly cake when I held in my hands something so girly and sweet!

At the time, it didn’t register in my head when I saw my mom step out from behind the fish pond booth a few minutes later. But I know she was the one who chose that special little gift for me, knowing how much it would delight me.

I discovered the statue wasn’t a statue at all, but part of a salt and pepper set produced by Enesco in the 1950s. The pattern is Prayer Lady. There were numerous pieces produced in a variety of styles, from a tea pot and soap dish to a canister set. They also produced them in a blue color scheme.

But none of that mattered to me. What mattered was that someone I loved made sure I received something I loved.

My little prayer lady sits on a shelf by my kitchen sink and every time I look at it, I think of that carnival and my mom, and it warms my heart all over again.

Do you have any fun or special school memories?

Did your school put on a carnival? 

Post your answer for a chance to win a $5 Amazon Gift Card!

Wooing the Schoolmarm and Giveaway

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Today, three-quarters of teachers in primary schools are women.  It wasn’t always that way.  Prior to 1850, teaching was primarily a male occupation.  Men received an education, and women were taught how to run a household. 

Industrialization changed all that.  The new economy led men into business and better wages, creating a teacher shortage. This left the door open for women to step in.   

It was a tough job.  Teachers taught in one-room schools with as many as sixty pupils.  Female teachers commanded less pay than their male counterparts, but the job did give women more independence. 

In my book, Wooing the Schoolmarm, Miss Maddie Percy has come all the way from Washington D.C. to teach school in Colton Kansas.   Instead, the feisty red-haired schoolmarm finds the town burned to the ground and her only shelter an isolated sod house belonging to widower Luke Tyler and his young son, Matthew. Never one to be deterred by setbacks, Maddie is soon making friends with the local Indians, setting up a tepee to live in, and finding her blood racing every time Luke comes near.

Luke Tyler has no room in his life for a woman—especially one as eccentric, spunky, and smart as Maddie Percy.  His prairie farm life is too harsh, his memories too painful and his secrets too dark to give in to the feelings she has awakened in him.  She might be stealing his son’s heart, but he is keeping his own out of reach. If only he could keep the sparks between them from igniting something as dangerous as lo

For a chance to win a copy of Wooing the Schoolmarm, tell us the challenges you’ve had with homeschooling during the pandemic or share a favorite memory of your early school years.  

 

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The First College for Women in the West ~ by Kathleen Denly

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When we think of the western frontier, few of us picture a young woman seated at her desk, studying English grammar, yet many would argue that the West was shaped as much by education as by anything else. Thus, when I learned of the pioneering institution known at its inception as the Young Ladies’ Seminary in Benicia, California, I was immediately intrigued. Established in 1852, it was the first school of higher learning created for women west of the Rockies and continues today as Mills College.

Despite the word seminary in its name, the school’s purpose was not to prepare its pupils to be priests, ministers, or rabbis. It was established to fulfill the perceived educational needs of the daughters of California’s Protestant Christian families. The original trustees were concerned that the pioneering families of the West were forced to choose between forgoing a higher education for their daughters or sending them on a long ocean voyage to New York, potentially severing family ties.

Thus the school was established while the gold rush was still in full swing and Benicia was California’s capital. According to the school’s early catalogues, its aim was “to train healthy, companionable, self-reliant women—those prepared to be useful and acceptable in the school, in the family, and in society.” To that end, the teachers deemed it important for their students to “be able to spell correctly, to read naturally, to write legibly, and to converse intelligently.” The young ladies of the school performed regular recitations at which family and select members of the public were often invited to attend. In addition to an English course of study, the school offered what they called “ornamental branches” of study which included “instrumental music (pianoforte and guitar), drawing, crayoning, painting (in water colors and oils) and ornamental needle work.” (Keep, 1931)

Initially many of the school’s students came from the nearby cities such as San Francisco, Marysville, Sacramento, and Stockton, but most came from Mother Lode camps such as Hangtown, Park’s Bar, Rough and Ready, Angels Camp, and more. A few students also came from the southern part of the Golden State, which is where my heroine, Clarinda Humphrey, hails from in my novel, Sing in the Sunlight. Keeping in mind the incredible fluctuation of fortunes and social status going on in California during this time period, the idea of young women from such varied backgrounds coming to Benicia to learn and live beneath the same roof is fascinating. What I wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall of the Young Ladies’ Seminary in those early days.

I think I’d have planted myself on the shoulder of those early principals first, though. It seems they had a terrible habit of forgoing their duties to pedagogy in favor of matrimony. The romantic in me is incredibly curious about how those courtships began and progressed. Further adding to my curiosity surrounding the school’s romances is the manner in which the school’s students were required to attend church.

Escorted to church each Sunday by their principal, the students were required to sit at the rear of the church in the upper gallery near the organ so that they would be out of sight of the young men present. My guess, though, is that more than one man gained a crick in his neck during services. What do you think?

Source:  Keep, R. (1931) Fourscore Years, A History of Mills College

 

 Preorder https://kathleendenly.com/books/

I’m excited to share with you that Sing in the Sunlight, book two of my Chaparral Hearts series which features the Young Ladies’ Seminary, is currently on preorder.

So today, I’m giving away a signed copy of Waltz in the Wilderness, book one in the series. Leave a comment below to enter. (International Winners will receive a digital copy of the book & signed bookmark in place of printed book. Void where prohibited.)

How influential was your college experience, or lack of it, in creating who you are today?

Buy WALTZ IN THE WILDERNESS on https://kathleendenly.com/books/

A Blast From My Past

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In addition to writing, I substitute teach in elementary school. This week is Read Across America, with schools celebrate reading, and particularly, Dr. Seuss. The program is encouraging supporters to take a selfie with their favorite childhood book and post it to social media. I decided to take it one step further and write this month’s blog about my choice.

But before I start talking about that, I must issue a quick apology, because my favorite childhood book, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, isn’t western related. For those who don’t know the story, it’s about a selfish, spoiled girl raised in India whose life is overturned when her parents die, forcing her to move to England to live with an uncle she’s never met.

I can’t remember what grade it was in elementary school or who my teacher was, which I truly regret, but one my teachers read The Secret Garden aloud to my class. From the moment she cracked the book open, I was hooked. I couldn’t wait for afternoon to arrive so I could head to the English countryside to spend time with poor Mary Lennox. After we finished the story, I bought a copy from Scholastic and reread the book repeatedly.

I loved seeing Mary growing more confident and content as she connected with the moors. Her budding relationship with Dickon captivated me. Even then I possessed the heart of a romance novelists, because I envisioned after the story ended, them living happily ever after on their own land, with a beautiful garden they lovingly tended together, and of course, they were still best friends with Colin. (BTW, I still want to know how their lives turned out. Hmmm. Maybe there’s a western fan fiction story in there!)

The mystery surrounding the cries in Misselthwaite Manor and why everyone insisted Mary was imagining things held me mesmerized. When Mary found her cousin Colin, and they and Dickon started exploring the secret garden, I was there too, sharing in their adventures.

For me, The Secret Garden had it all—romance, mystery, a heroine with a tragic past in need of a home, family, love and belonging. All themes that are intertwined in the books I write today. The Secret Garden hooked me on reading and started me dreaming about writing my own stories.

But how about you? Leave me a comment about your favorite childhood book to be entered to win the snack set and a copy of To Love A Texas Cowboy. Ironically, like Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, To Love A Texas Cowboy is my story about a tragically orphaned little girl. Though she’s not the main character, Ella being orphaned, like Mary, sets the story into motion.

Now go. I’m excited to hear about your favorite childhood book and why it means so much to you!

TO LOVE A TEXAS RANGER Book Release!

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Love a Texas Ranger smallerI’m so excited! TO LOVE A TEXAS RANGER is out and just waiting for you to read it! This is book #1 of my new Men of Legend series. It’s about a family – a father and his three sons – who live on a huge North Texas ranch called the Lone Star. For those who remember the western TV series Bonanza it’ll seem like going home. Instead of the Cartwrights this is the Legend family and they’re bigger-than-life.

Stoker Legend is a tough rancher who carved his name in blood on the Texas landscape. The ranch began as land given to him for fighting in the Texas War of Independence but now it’s grown to 480,000 acres and it’s a lot harder to hold onto.

His sons Sam, Houston, and Luke learned to have the same kind of steel in their backbone and they don’t back—from anything or anyone. Sam left the ranch as soon as he was able though which is a bone of contention between him and his father. Houston is most like Stoker and wants only to ranch. It’s in his blood. No one knows about Luke, not even Stoker, until this book. This illegitimate son turns their lives upside down. Luke is also an outlaw. Being a lawman, Sam feels a duty to arrest him and would if Stoker hadn’t stopped him.

So you see, conflict oozes from the pages of this story.


to-love-a-texas-ranger6In TO LOVE A TEXAS RANGER, Sam is incapacitated and can’t do his job so his captain sends him home to recover. He boards a train and is immediately launched into saving Sierra Hunt, a pretty young woman who is running from outlaws. If he can just get her to the Lone Star, she’ll be safe. But two hundred miles stand between them. A mysterious gunslinger, joins them in the mad dash and at times only seconds separate them all from death.

And of course, with this being a romance, Sam falls in love with Sierra. But he won’t give up his job and the need to keep moving. Sierra has always dreamed of having a house one day where she can put down strong roots and she won’t give it up—not even for Sam Legend.

BLOG ONE ROOM SCHOOLHOUSE IN BLANCHARD-1910Sierra is a schoolteacher so once she reaches the Lone Star, she teaches the ranch families’ children. On a ranch of this size, there are about 30-40 children. The Lone Star is so remote that Stoker Legend built a small town so the families wouldn’t have to travel so far to a town. They have a mercantile, telegraph, doctor, blacksmith, and a school.

Strangely enough, there were ranch schools back then. There was no excuse for ignorance so they taught them everything they needed to know in order to make it in the world. The schools consisted of one-room with the various grades all combined. The ranch owner paid the teacher a salary and furnished a place to live. It was a setup that greatly benefited everyone.

Pick up a copy of this book and ride along with Sam and the Legends. Stick your feet in the stirrups and hang on tight because if you fall off, Sam’s too busy chasing outlaws and saving Sierra to come back and get you.

Four lucky people will win a copy– choice of format. Leave a comment to enter the drawing.

If you like a book brimming with juicy secrets, this one is for you. What are you most drawn to in western romance? I really like stories that contain a lot of juicy secrets. And boy do I mean juicy!

Book #2 – HEART OF A TEXAS COWBOY comes out in May 2017 followed by the 3rd one in November.

Visit my website, read an excerpt and sign up for my newsletter at  http://lindabroday.com/

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