One Small Miracle, Part 2

Part 1 of this post is below, so you can scroll past this one and skim that if you like, or just let me recap for you:

My great-grandmother, Bertha Gifford, is infamous in Missouri (and online, now) because she was charged with multiple murders in 1928. Depending on your point of view, she was either a cold-hearted killer of just fewer than twenty people, or she was a misunderstood, compassionate person who wanted to help others (and who aided in raising my mother in a loving, doting way). To my knowledge, up to this point in time, only two photos of Bertha existed. (There are a couple of photos that were published in newspapers during her trial that were wrongly identified as her.) One photo of Bertha was taken on the day she went to trial and was published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the newspaper that, to this day, still owns the copyright to that photograph (see previous blog post). The other photo is one taken at intake on the day she was remanded to the Missouri State Institution for the Criminally Insane (although it is no longer called that). I have that photo because I have a copy of her file, but it has not been made public.

Last week, a descendant in the Gifford family contacted me because she had been given photos that had been passed down through Bertha's second husband's family. This woman--whom I've never met--had read my book, The Tainted Legacy of Bertha Gifford, and she wanted to give those photos to me. I assumed she would send me copies. She sent the original photos. Oh my dragons....

The package arrived (as previously noted) last Thursday night, but I didn't open it. I felt strongly that my sister should be present, so we arranged for her to come to my house on Saturday morning. We sat together at my kitchen table, and I opened the package, sifting through the many, many photos that were sent. One was a picture of our maternal grandmother, Lila (Bertha's daughter with her first husband, Henry Graham). In this photo, she is standing with Gene Gifford's sister, Margaret Morse Gifford. My grandmother, Lila, is the one on the left. The photo is dated 1914, so Lila would have been 18 years old.

This picture was just absolutely lovely to receive. But the photo that made me cry was the single photo of Bertha Gifford included with all the others. In it, she is seated on the steps of the front porch of the farmhouse in Catawissa--the same porch where I have been photographed a number of times in recent years. She's wearing the same coat she wore to trial, so I assume the photo was taken circa 1928, possibly a bit earlier.

Her husband Gene is in the picture as well, sitting beside her. Bertha is not looking toward the camera. She is looking directly into Gene's face, and she is smiling. Her hands are folded in her lap. Gene is wearing a suit and tie and hat. Neither are dressed for farm work. Was it a Sunday? Were they going to or coming from church? Or was the photo taken by a traveling photographer, so they got themselves gussied up for it, as was the custom back then? Who knows.

I do know this: Bertha looks like any other loving wife, charmed by her husband's good looks. No, she does not look like a crazed serial killer or psychopath.

And no, I'm not going to post the photo online. If I did, it would immediately be copied and exploited for the benefit of others.

So yeah, I know, these two posts are probably disappointing. Everyone wants to know what she looked like. Well... she looked a bit like her daughter in the photo above... who looked like her daughter... who looked like me.

One Small Miracle

 My great-grandmother, Bertha Gifford

As I write this, a package is making its way to my address via the United States Postal Service. I can hardly stand the anticipation. I've been waiting for its contents for over a quarter century.

Last Saturday, I received an email from a woman who introduced herself by explaining her genealogy. Her great-uncle, Gene Gifford, was the second husband of my great-grandmother, Bertha Gifford.  We're not related by blood. (I am Bertha's great-granddaughter through her first marriage, to Henry Graham.) So why does this woman's genealogy matter? I'll tell you why. Because this very kind person, in going through very old family photos, found some of her great-uncle Gene--and his wife, Bertha. And she wanted to know if I would like copies of them. Would I? Oh holy saints preserve us, why yes, yes ma'am, please and thank you a thousand times.

Other than the picture posted above (and one I have never shared publicly that was taken on the day she was incarcerated), there have been no other photographs of Bertha Gifford in existence. Or so we believed. The one shown here is a copy of the photo taken by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographer at Bertha's trial (for murder). Due to the family's shame at her arrest, and their subsequent distancing of themselves from her, no photographs of her have ever been passed down. Until now.

Suddenly, out of the blue, on a normal Saturday when I had finished walking dogs, and I thought I would just quickly check my inbox before working on my current writing project, here was this email. From a stranger. She'd read my memoir, The Tainted Legacy of Bertha Gifford, and she'd heard "family stories" about Bertha since she was a young girl. When she came across the photographs, she thought I might like to have copies.

Her phone number was included at the bottom of the email. I called her. She picked up. We chatted like cousins (because we very nearly were) for twenty minutes. She promised to make copies of the photos the following Monday, then send them on to me.

Please, USPS, hurry up. Because all I can do in the meantime is pace around the house and wait. I know, I know, I've waited this long. It's only a few days, right? I'm so excited....

My mother, Arta Ernestine West Murphy

UPDATE: Oh hey, are you still reading? Because, after I wrote the first draft of this post, I strolled down to my mailbox, and, what do you know? That package has arrived. Haven't opened it yet. Stay tuned....

 

House for Sale

There’s a big old house for sale in Morse Mill, Missouri, and it’s a very special house.

The house is 3800 square feet, and it’s located on 4.5 beautiful acres. But that’s not what makes it special.

It’s multi-storied and sits across the road from the Big River, so I’m betting there’s probably a gorgeous view of that wide, meandering river from the south-facing bedrooms on the upper floors. But that’s not what makes the house special.

Oh—speaking of bedrooms, there are six. And six bathrooms. Perfect for a bed & breakfast place, right? And the entire place has been fully renovated. (Check out the impressive photos here.) But that’s not what makes the house special, either.

A hundred years ago, this property was a bustling hotel, and it’s rumored that Charles Lindbergh once stayed there. The original hotel register still exists. But although that’s a fascinating tidbit from history, it is not what makes this place special.

What makes it special is that my great-grandmother stayed there. Well, okay, she didn’t actually stay as a guest. She worked there and helped run it for a year or so.

Why is that special? Because now that Bertha Gifford’s name has been associated with murderers and psychopaths and female serial killers, everyone seems to think that she has some reason to haunt this place simply because she worked there. The truth is, she wasn’t accused of poisoning anyone until she lived in Catawissa. Her trial was some twenty years or so after she worked at the hotel in Morse Mill. But a lot of folks seem determined to jump on the Crazy Bertha bandwagon, and it only took one or two of those folks to claim they’d seen or heard evidence of Bertha’s spirit at the hotel. Then everyone and his cousin wanted to do a paranormal investigation. (Yeah, go ahead, if you have a couple hours; just search “Morse Mill Hotel” on YouTube. Just…don’t believe everything you watch. Ugh.)

It doesn’t help that he-who-shall-remain-nameless has exploited the hell out of Bertha’s brief work stint there, claiming that she killed upwards of 40 people (what the actual you-know-what?) while working there, “most of them children.” (WHAT THE ACTUAL ????) None of what he has perpetuated is true. None of it. But it has brought people to the hotel in droves, which I suppose has lined his pockets with some change. Ugh ugh ugh.

But O Happy Day the hotel has finally been renovated and is now offered for sale. I can’t afford to buy it or I would. Dear Universe, I implore you, send someone kind and compassionate to take it over, to let it once again celebrate the living (famous or not), to be a tranquil resting place for weary travelers. Including me, maybe, next time I visit Missouri. Here’s hoping.

Before it served as a hotel, this was actually someone's home, built prior to the Civil War.

What it looks like now, for sale

 

Circles

Last month I spoke about The Tainted Legacy of Bertha Gifford at the Moreno Valley Public Library. It was a last-minute engagement; another speaker had cancelled, and they needed an author to fill in. I didn’t mind. I will do most anything to accommodate librarians.

Because I agreed to speak just a week before the event, there was little time for publicity. Only three people showed up to hear my talk. Two were resident librarians there. The third was on the library commission, and he had just released his own book, so he wanted to see how this sort of thing was done.

Still, it was a wonderful evening. I got to make three new friends, and I got to share Bertha’s story. Ain’t nothin’ bad about that. Well, actually, one thing was bad. In agreeing to speak on that date, I missed the opportunity to see Susan Straight speak about her new memoir, In the Country of Women. I’d been looking forward to it for weeks, because I’d read the book and loved it, and also because I’ve been a fan of Susan Straight’s work since 2002.

Funny story about that:

Back in 2002, I facilitated a small writer’s support group which met bi-monthly at the Barnes & Noble in Rancho Cucamonga. Occasionally, the PR rep for the store would book authors who wanted to promote new books, and our little group would welcome them. When I learned that Susan Straight would come speak to us about her new book, Highwire Moon, I was excited. She taught at my alma mater, and I’d heard good things about her first novel (I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots). But I was also conflicted. Rapper Eminem had a show at the Blockbuster Pavilion on the same night, and I had the chance to get good seats, and yes, I am a fan of that particular poet’s work, however he delivers it. But… as leader of our little contingent of writers, I felt I needed to be present for Susan’s talk.

While I believe I would have thoroughly enjoyed seeing Eminem live, Susan’s visit with us was absolutely memorable, on several levels.

She showed up to speak to us despite having experienced profound personal tragedy. Her brother had passed away that day. We told her she didn’t have to stay, that we would understand if she left and returned at a better time, but she told us she needed to be around writers, which made us feel as if she regarded us as equals.

In her soft, articulate manner, she read a beautiful passage of Highwire Moon, and I fell in love with the book. (It is truly a stellar read, and was nominated for a National Book Award.)

Weeks later, I decided to write about missing my chance to see one troubadour in favor of being in a more intimate setting with another. I sent that piece of writing off to the Los Angeles Times and sold it. It was my first sale with the Times.

Driving home from the Moreno Valley Library talk, I mused on all of this, how all those years ago I missed Em to see Susan, and now I had missed Susan to talk about my own book, and how life is often less linear than it is circular, as we complete the slow but meaningful revolutions in our individual journeys.

Birthday

On this date in 1872, William Poindexter Williams and his wife, Matilda Caroline (Lee) Williams, gave birth to their sixth child, Bertha Alice. When she was 22, Bertha married Henry Graham. They had one child together, a daughter, Lila Clara. Lila would also eventually have one daughter: My mother.

Bertha’s first husband died, and about a year later Bertha married Eugene (Gene) Gifford, thus becoming Bertha Gifford, that name now infamous due to circumstances that occurred so very long ago.

In 2008, one day after what would have been Bertha’s 136^th birthday, the book I wrote about her alleged crimes was released on Amazon.com.

Folks who live in Missouri in and around the town where she lived have claimed that it was said at the time of her death that “her grave should go unmarked for fifty years.”

I was unaware of that local lore when I arranged, in 2009, to have a headstone placed on her grave, but when I heard it, I did the math; her headstone was placed 58 years after her death. What gave me chills, though, was the realization that I had begun the book in 2001—50 years after her death.

The marking of Bertha’s grave is not the only significant event that has occurred since the publication of the book—or because of it.

In researching Bertha—and searching for who else might be searching for her—I connected with Marc Houseman, historian and director of the Washington Historical Society and museum in Washington, Missouri. In the decade since, he has become one of my closest friends. Writing the book also introduced me to a fellow lover-of-ghosts-and-cemeteries, Ginger, who is also now one of my dearest and closest friends in the world.

And oh my goodness, the cousins I’ve met! Starting with Jean Thompson, who has now passed over, but was my first living familial link to Bertha besides my mother. Also: Tim Fiedler, owner of the farmhouse on Bend Road where Bertha lived and where I am now always welcomed when in Missouri. Tim Ogle, the cousin who found me through researching our mutual ancestors and who introduced me to another cousin, Maxine Nevel, who told us recently she was fine to stand while talking but, she said, “When I was ninety-five, I had to stop riding the horses.” She’s ninety-eight. Chris Wilkinson, the cousin who found me through reading the book and was kind enough to reach out to me, showing me pages from an ancient family Bible that listed our mutual ancestors. He and his wife are now dear friends.

The list goes on.

I’ve lost count of the number of talks I’ve given about Bertha at libraries and book clubs and writers groups. Every single event has been a joy, mostly for the kind individuals who have expressed compassion and empathy for my great-grandmother, but also for those who’ve shared a different perspective on her deeds; the fact that they have read the book is always enough to make me happy.

All of these introductions, events, and connections have been invaluable to me, including and especially the book's effect on my mother. For 80 years, she carried the shame of having been the granddaughter of this woman who had been accused of heinous crimes. Reading the book helped her see Bertha from a new perspective. Her shame fell away when she considered her grandmother as simply a fallible human being, not the monster that others and the media had portrayed her to be. Mom was given closure, and for that I am most grateful.

When I wrote that book, I wrote it for my mother. And for my family (because I know that one day, my yet-to-be-born great-grandchildren will be interested). And for the folks in Missouri who still tell the stories about Bertha. I never could have imagined the resulting repercussions it would have. It is one story. Telling it would change my life in profound and wonderful ways.

Thank you, Bertha, for giving me your story. For trusting me with it. And happy, happy birthday. Please hug my mom and Grandma Lila for me.

In MO

Last Thursday, October 10th, I landed in St. Louis at 6:10p.m. I switched my phone off airplane mode as soon as we'd arrived at the terminal--only to find 17 text messages awaiting me. A fire was burning in Calimesa, the city where I live. Friends and family members were calling, texting, emailing and hitting me up on Facebook to check on me.

It only took a few minutes to get a Lyft ride, and from the backseat of my driver's car, I called my next-door neighbor. All was well in my senior complex, but the mobile home park 5 miles away had burned to the ground. The good folks in my town were already rallying to reach out to those who had been displaced.

We drove on in a steady rain to Pacific, Missouri, where Marc and Ginger, my two musketeers, were waiting in the lobby of the hotel to take me to dinner. We talked about the fires burning back home, about my flight, about Marc's health and Ginger's current situation with a bad, bad ex-husband. It was so, so great to see them.

The next day was meant for rambling. I met my new-found cousin, Chris, and his wife Vicki, in the hotel breakfast room the next morning. Chris and I share a distant (several times) great-grandfather, Israel Lee, and the day would be spent looking for Israel's grave. We never found it (though we have a few new leads). But along the way we stopped in Morse Mill so that I could visit the grave of my great-grandmother, Bertha Gifford. Marc pointed out the remains of the old mill, which sat upon the banks of the Big River (not to be confused with the Meramec or the Missouri or the Mississippi rivers), and we strolled across the old bridge that is still there.

Later, we would find another mill along the Big River, one Israel Lee might have been involved in erecting. 

Chris and I ventured inside the 100-plus-year-old building, which is mostly gutted, and the giant millstones are gone, but it was clear where they'd been placed all those years ago, and how the pressure from the flow of the river water passed through to turn the mechanism which turned the stones. The place is for sale, and we had half a mind to call the realtor. But then common sense prevailed.

I'd been invited to Missouri to attend a ceremony to honor my great-great-great-great-grandfather on my mother's paternal side, Landon Williams, who had fought in the War of 1812. The Society of the War of 1812 in the State of Missouri, and the National Society of United States Daughters of 1812 in the State of Missouri were joining together to bestow a medallion in recognition of his service on the grave of Landon Williams. He did not die in the war. He survived--and fathered a son who fathered a son who fathered my great-grandmother. Amazing, no?

The ceremony was presided over by Sumner Hunnewell, president of the Society of the War of 1812 in the State of Missouri--and a true renaissance man. He not only emceed the ceremony, he brought 30 small pies for refreshments. Pies he baked himself. From scratch. And I mean scratch--making his own crust and cooking down the pumpkin for the pumpkin pie (which was not the only kind; he also brought berry, pecan, and mincemeat). 

The 4th Regiment North Carolina Militia turned out for the ceremony as well, posting the colors and, at the end, providing a rifle salute to Landon Williams.

Cool, no? Of course, as soon as they posted the colors, I cried--for our flag, for our country, for men who find the courage to act out of duty to both, and for all the generations of my family that somehow survived hardship and kept reproducing so that I could live this extraordinary life. It was a lot to take in. Plus pie.

All of this hoopla started when my cousin, Tim Ogle, went looking for people in the Williams family he was related to. And he found Landon Williams' grave. And the headstone was broken, so he repaired it. (Good job, Tim!!) In researching Landon, he discovered his service in 1812, eventually enlisting the aid of the two historical societies to honor Landon's service. All I had to do was show up and take a seat in the front row.

The next day, my last full day in Missouri, was spent once again with buds Marc and Ginger, just driving around, visiting cemeteries, laughing over lunch and Marc's puns and cornball jokes. (We love them. We really do.) As we were headed back to the hotel, he casually mentioned, "Oh, we're near my friends' home. They raise bison." And suddenly he was pulling to the side of the road. Yep. That's a buffalo all right.

People often ask me why I go to Missouri every year, and what I do there. Well... I spend a lot of time walking through cemeteries... and hugging friends... and laughing... and relaxing... and seeing things I don't normally see... and being spoiled. I get homesick easily, and I miss my fur babies while I'm gone. But the minute I'm home again, I also miss the friends and cousins I will not see for another year. Oh yeah, I'll be back again next year. We still have to find Israel's grave.

Nostalgia

Yesterday morning I spent two hours talking to a cousin—a cousin whom I've never met. He'd read my memoir, Tainted Legacy, saw the last name "Williams" mentioned as one of my ancestors, did some checking, and yeah, we're cousins; his great-grandfather was the brother of my great-great-grandmother (all of which we happily verified on Ancestry.com). Our conversation, over that two hours, led us from laughter to tears and back again as we shared family stories and secrets, heartaches and triumphs. And in the course of our dialogue, we discussed an individual who may or may not be a blood relative, someone with whom I had contact while researching Tainted Legacy. But I haven't spoken to her in years. And now I'm curious to know who her people were. So is new-cousin-Chris.

"Don't let her slip away, Kay," he implored.

No kidding.

So I went looking for her phone number. I began by searching my entire Bertha Gifford file (and let me tell you, it's extensive, including all my notes, newspaper clippings, photos, every email I've ever received about her or the book—printed--rejection slips from agents and publishers—ha ha ha ha ha ha ha—and the True Crime comic book in which her story is featured. (No, I won't mention which one or the issue date. Good lord, it's horrid.)

But I didn't find her phone number.

So today I finally (after quite a few years), went through my nightstand drawer, the place where I keep the cards my kids send me and other precious mementos.

Is it important to mention that I've had the same nightstand since I was born? Yep. For sixty-plus years it has sat sturdily next to my bed in every home I've lived in. The beds have come and gone (I sometimes miss the waterbed), but the nightstand remains stalwart. I promised my mom in 1972 when I moved out of the house and she sent it off with me that I'd sand it down and refinish it. Sorry, Mom!

I didn't find that phone number.

But I did find an abundance of other treasures, including a birthday card The Youngest Granddaughter made for me—yes, that granddaughter, the one who just started college. I have treasured it all these years for the way she depicted us together.

 And a Mother's Day card my son drew for me—in the 1980's—complete with an Ewok sticker to fancy it up.

 And a card my mother sent me... when she was 90.

 And the two-page letter my sweet cousin Danny Fiocchi sent me after he'd finished reading Tainted Legacy, which was not long after it came out because at its publication, I'd sent him a copy, since the book came into being only because that stubborn Irish/Italian man refused to let me give up on it. In the letter, he mentions that he is 51... that he started working at the age of 16... that in all the years he's been working, he's only been late for work "a handful of times, today being one of them." Because he couldn't put the book down. "Thank God I'm my boss," he said. See why I love him?

And all the precious bookmarks my bibliophile friends have sent me over the years, including one from County Cork, Ireland (wherein the Murphy ancestors lie buried), several made for me by my beloved cousin Jean Thompson, and one I procured from the Singing Wind bookstore in Benson, Arizona (Winifred Bundy, proprietor) in 1993.

I have been steeped in nostalgia all day. And you know what? It's a nice place to visit when you've been sad. It has reminded me of how much love has been surrounding me all my life.

Now if I can just find that phone number....

This very special trip to Missouri

The Bend Bridge over the Meramec River

Good grief and hallelujah, it was so great to get back to Missouri after an absence of two years. Two years! How did I let the summer of 2016 slip past without a quick trip to see the folks I love? This trip was all the sweeter for the absence, but mostly because this guy came with me:

We are posed here in front of the infamous "big red barn" on Old Bend Road just a few yards from the farmhouse where my mother lived for a while with her grandmother, Bertha Gifford. Showing my son the farmhouse where his grandmother lived, where some of her ashes are scattered, was one of the highlights of this trip for me. He said later, as we were driving away, that he felt "serene." This did not surprise me; it is the same feeling I've always had after spending time at the farmhouse. Others see it as the "House of Mystery" and some have claimed to have seen apparitions here. I've never felt any presence other than light and peace. We were fortunate that Tim Fiedler, owner of the farm with his sister, Joyce, was gracious enough to walk us through the old farmhouse... and I could show my son where his grandmother, eighty years ago or so, took the mule upstairs to her bedroom....

In the foreground here is Ginger Collins Justus, one of the most amazing people on the planet, and next to her is Marc Houseman, historian extraordinaire and also one of the most amazing people in my life. Ginger took this photo while I was demonstrating some very complex karate moves. 

Marc and Ginger are trusted companions while I'm in Missouri, introducing me to countless interesting places, adventures and food items:

Marc is in his favorite pose here--resting in peace--at a beautiful old mausoleum that we wandered through. This was after we'd had lunch "on The Hill" in St. Louis, an Italian community so strong I wondered why my cousins hadn't moved down from Illinois to live here:

The day before, they also introduced me to deep fried pickle chips. Yes, Missouri, good job!

More than menu choices, though, I was deeply grateful for their help with the two speaking engagements I did, hosted by the libraries in Pacific and Sullivan. Marc answered questions and helped with book sales, Ginger did the same--and took photos:

Folks turned out in large numbers to hear more about Bertha Gifford. To me, the most treasured person present was David Gail Schamel. His older half brothers, Elmer and Lloyd Schamel, died while under the care of my great-grandmother. Mr. Schamel always shows up when I speak in Pacific, and he is always incredibly gracious, sharing photos of his brothers and this time, a photo of his beautiful great-granddaughter. I always look forward to these events as they give me the opportunity to meet readers face to face, some of them, like Mr. Schamel, direct descendants of people who were living in Catawissa or Pacific in those same decades Bertha lived there. The night I spoke at "The White Chapel" in Sullivan (photo directly above), I also met young Emma. She asked a question during the Q & A portion ("Does anyone still live in Bertha's house?"), and after the event came up to give me the portrait she drew of me while I was speaking:

It's a pretty true likeness, don't you think?

It's probably clear why some of these Missouri folks have become true friends over the years. Their warmth, grace and acceptance encourages and inspires me, and makes me yearn every year, as spring folds into summer, to see them once again.

More on The Tainted Legacy of Bertha Gifford

Bertha Gifford's first husband was Henry Graham (which would make him my great-grandfather) Recently I met a cousin with whom I am related through the Graham family. (Thank you, thank you, Ancestry.com.) Before we met, she had already learned of Henry's infamous wife and had read the new, independently published version of my book, The Tainted Legacy of Bertha Gifford.

When we met for lunch, Laurie didn't know anything about me other than what she'd read on my blog and that we shared great-great-grandparents. As we chatted about the book, though, I was struck by how similar our perspective on it was. She kept going back to the so-called "confession," the statement Bertha gave to Sheriff Georg regarding her personal use of arsenic as a medication and how she had administered it while acting as a volunteer nurse. Laurie's thought was this: If her intent had been murder, why would she readily volunteer this information? Wouldn't she instead try to deny it?

I come back to that point frequently myself, and I'm also quite sure that what Sheriff Georg asked her to sign was a statement summarizing what she'd said. Not until the statement was given to the press was it characterized as a "confession." Yep, we've all seen those true crime shows—48 Hours, Dateline, Cold Case Files—in which the perpetrator sits for hours in a small interrogation room being questioned repeatedly, and we all hope to see the moment in which the guilty individual will finally cave and come clean. This was not the case with Bertha. Sheriff Georg put her in a room alone and simply left her there for hours. I'm guessing by the time he finally returned and asked her for a statement about her use of arsenic, she was anxious to comply so that she could get back home to the farm and her husband, her son and her granddaughter (my mother). She never expected to be arrested based on the contents of that document.

Let me repeat what I've said countless times before: I make no attempt to exonerate her. I just want people to think through all of the known facts before making a judgment about her.

Go Set a Watchman

Atticus Finch is not a real person. He is a character in a novel. While he may be multifaceted and dynamic as a character, he is that and only that—a character, comprised of the requisite parts given him by Harper Lee when she wrote the consummate American novel, To Kill a Mockingbird and also when she wrote the first draft of that novel, which is now known as Go Set a Watchman.

For in fact, that is exactly what Go Set a Watchman is—a first draft, the initial disorganized and somewhat plotless musings of a slightly younger Harper Lee than the one who wrote Mockingbird. Miss Lee's publisher, HarperCollins, has done the business of promoting Watchman as if it were an entirely separate novel—because that is what their identity is; they are a business. As much as we would like to think of publishing houses as being run by noble, educated persons who are nearly super-heroes in their defense of great literature, the truth is, HarperCollins is a business organized for the purpose of making money. Lots and lots of money.

And so it seems they have done with Watchman. (It is currently number one in literature/classics on Amazon.) But while they touted this book as 'a new novel by Harper Lee,' those good folks know exactly what this is; it is the first pages of a novel written by a young college student who thought she might like to write about the South, her hometown, and her father. In Watchman, she characterizes Atticus as having caved to the agenda of the racists of his town. In Mockingbird, he stands against such folk. Which Atticus best reflects Amasa Coleman Lee, Harper's real-life father? Who can say, and we will never know, as our beloved Miss Lee, always reticent to give interviews, is now beyond the point of discussing either novel.

When I wrote Tainted Legacy, a book about my great-grandmother, Bertha Gifford, who is now vilified as a serial killer, I wrote the original draft to fit the current True Crime genre. After long discussions with a publisher who read that original draft, however, I decided to rewrite the book as a memoir. Now it is a book that I am quite proud of, as it reflects a wider scope of Bertha's story (which is also my grandmother's story and my mother's and mine as well). In the same way, I believe Harper Lee had similar discussions about her first go at a novel, and she came away with some ideas about how she wanted to change her portrayal of this character, Atticus Finch, and the town of Maycomb... and herself. Thus she produced the much beloved work we know today as Mockingbird. If only she'd had the presence of mind to toss that first manuscript in the incinerator... as I have done with my first attempt.

The Mystery of Ernest Jefferson West. Solved.

My grandmother, Lila Clara Graham West

Ernest Jefferson West is my maternal grandfather.  But I know very little about him.  We lived in California and he lived in Florida as I was growing up, and I only remember meeting him once.  He and my grandmother, Lila, divorced when she was still a relatively young woman, and he went on to marry someone else, have other children, create another life.

By the time I knew that Grandma Lila's mother had been tried for murder, Grandma Lila had already left this earth, so I could not harangue her for information as I did my mother.  One thing she did not have answers for was this:  How did her mom (Lila) and dad (Ernest--whom Mom is named after) end up in Detroit?  Lila was born and raised in rural Missouri.  Somehow she was in Detroit in the early 1920's, running a boarding house... which is why she sent her young daughter Ernestine to live 'back on the farm' in Missouri, so she would be "safe" in the country from all the dangers of the big city... which is how Mom came to be there the day her grandmother was arrested for murder.

A lifetime later, I tried to track down the history of Ernest Jefferson West (as did my genealogy-loving sister-in-law), but to no avail.  I wanted to know where he came from, how he met my grandmother, why they ended up in Detroit.  For years, I had no answers.

On my last trip to Missouri, I told my dear friend Marc Houseman (Saint Marc, at this point) everything I knew about Ernest West, and I asked for help in finding him.  Marc spent hours researching findagrave.com and ancestry.com and any other place he could think of.  And he found him.  He found him.

Now I know that Ernest Jefferson West (the son of Andrew Johnson West and Artie Miss West, nee Kelly) lived in Iron County, Missouri, some distance (but not too far, apparently) from the county in which Lila grew up.  They were married in 1914.  As Marc shared with me the information he had found, he pointed out that the 1920 shows the young couple living in Detroit, with Ernest working in the auto industry.  Makes sense, right?  And it's a universal, American Dream type of story.  The youngsters left the rural mid-west, hoping to build a future for themselves.  Sadly, they divorced several years later.  Lila was on her own, and she sent her only child back home to live with her mother.  Little did she know what would transpire over the next few years.

So now I know.  I only wish my grandma were still alive.  It never occurred to me when I was a kid, then a young newlywed myself, to ask her how she'd met her husband.  If I had, I might have been privy to their reasons for leaving Missouri.  Now, I can only conjecture.

I do know how my mom met my dad, so for posterity's sake (and because it's my mama's birthday today--Happy Birthday, Mom!), here it is:

My mother was a singer during the 1940's.  She did not sing on the radio nor did she have a recording contract.  What she has told me is that she traveled around the mid-west, occasionally staying in towns she liked.  She would find a nightclub, and if she liked the band, she would convince them to let her get up and sing.  She made tips and traveling money, as she put it.  One night, at a club in Highland Park, Illinois, a man from the crowd approached her after her set and asked to give her a ride home.  She declined.  He offered again, but somewhat belligerently.  When she declined again, he became obnoxious.  Sitting nearby was my father, who gallantly stood and said something like, "Didn't you hear the lady?  She doesn't want a ride home."  Their brief conversation ended in my father punching the guy in the nose.  My dad wasn't a policeman yet in those days, but he was a taxi driver, and he did take my mom home that night.  Good call, Mom!

My mom and dad, circa 1947