Although all novels are fictitious, many are based in full or part on real facts. They often detail genuine historic times and the lives of real people. I find I often enjoy novels more than true autobiographies or biographies about famous people. They weave the history of remarkable lives into story—which is often more engaging and enjoyable to read. As a woman, my favorites are about other women. I like reading about how they became the heroine of their own lives and not the victim, of how they juggled the problems of multiple roles and the minority status of being a woman to reach for more and to accomplish more. Audre Lord once wrote: “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” Books about women who have overcome obstacles, made their way in the world against unusual odds, or bravely chosen an untraditional route for their lives inspire and empower other women to also reach for more.
For my November blog I wanted to spotlight some books and novels that tell the stories of some remarkable women. The ones below are contemporary books, some set in the past, some more biographical than others, but each tells the story of a woman who followed a different drummer to a unique destiny. It should be remembered that this is never an easy road for any woman to follow and the success of any woman who makes a difference and leaves a legacy should always be celebrated.
The first book I remember reading about a remarkable woman was actually about a young girl on the brink of womanhood. Her name was Anne Frank and the book I read was a diary Anne kept—which of course was not planned as a book to be published. Annelies Frank, called Anne (1929-1945), gained fame after her death through the publication of her diary in ANNE FRANK: THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL. 
As a Jewish girl, thirteen-year-old Anne penned her thoughts in a dark time of hiding during the German occupation of her Amsterdam hometown. After two years Anne’s family was found, arrested, and sent to Auschwitz, and later to another concentration camp where Anne died. Anne’s diary was found, given to her father after the war, and eventually published. … Most know this story as the book became a classic and was made into a film. But to me as a young girl reading Anne’s dairy brought a time of history alive to me in a painful, personal way. For Anne’s private account made me “feel” and imagine that time in a way history book accounts never did. In addition, Anne’s incredible optimism in a harsh, cruel time, her desire to “think of all the beauty still left” and her belief, in spite of the evil and cruelties she saw, that “people are really good at heart” stayed tucked deep into my spirit and still influences my thinking.
From the serious to the humorous, I also loved Ree Drummond’s book THE PIONEER WOMAN: BLACK HEELS TO TRACTOR WHEELS. I discovered and enjoyed this light-hearted novel long before Ree Drummond’s fame rose as high as it is today. The book is a fun and delightful love story of how Anne Marie (“Ree”) Drummond, a city girl, heading to Chicago to pursue a law degree, unexpectedly meets, falls in love with, and marries an Oklahoma rancher. 
She called Ladd Drummond The Marboro Man throughout the book, making you laugh at the unlikely match Ree makes to a fourth-generation rancher on a remote, 430,000 acre spread. The book shares the hard transition Ree faced in settling in to this new life, the teasing, the adjustments, and the difficulties –all in a warm-hearted story … The book doesn’t share the story that follows, though—and I’ve always wished Ree would write another. Extroverted and hungry for company, Ree started a blog later in her life, around raising four kids, feeding cowboys, and living on her Oklahoma ranch. Amazingly, it took off like gangbusters. The blog’s popularity soon morphed into a TV show and a stack of cookbooks, all filled with Ree’s own recipes and personal photographs of her home and life on the ranch. Today, more success has followed, and Ree and her family have a restaurant, hotel, retail store, and bakery in Oklahoma along with a huge fan base. Although many people have seen Ree’s TV shows or picked up one of her cookbooks, I’ve found that few people have read her personal novel and how it all began… so look for this book and expect a lot of laughs and smiles!
Another humorous novel I very much enjoyed is by Peggilene Bartels, who is the reigning chief of the town or Tantum (or Otaum) in Ghana, Africa. As a young woman in her twenties, Peggy moved to the United States to work as a secretary at the Embassy of Ghana in Washington DC. 
Amazingly after she had worked at the embassy for nearly thirty years, she got a letter one day, and then a phone call, telling her that due to a death in her family that she’d become “king” of her hometown village of 7,000 people in West Africa. “You are now the new king of Otaum!” the caller told her. The novel tells Peggy’s story of returning to her village and taking up the difficult job of becoming a ruler in what she soon learns is a very problematic situation. This is a wonderful story about what one woman with courage and determination can do. Be sure to read this one for a peek into a very different culture from ours in America. You’ll love it.
Stepping back into the past again, I also greatly enjoyed a novel celebrating the life of Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley, a Black woman who was President Abraham Lincoln’s wife’s dressmaker. The book MRS. LINCOLN’S DRESSMAKER is written by Jennifer Chiaverini, a New York Times Bestseller. 
The story dips into the very private life of Mary Lincoln, and her family, from the fictional perspective of her dressmaker and trusted friend. It’s a marvelous story, spanning a lengthy period of history, and following the relationship of these two women into the White House, through the trials of the Civil War, and almost to Mrs. Lincoln’s death. Other books have been written about the unlikely friendship of Elizabeth and Mary but this was my first to discover. Elizabeth, a former slave, who endured great hardship in her earlier life, became not only a skilled seamstress and friend to Mary Todd Lincoln, but established a successful dressmaking business, became a civil activist, an author, and served on faculty at Wilberforce University in Ohio. For a glimpse into a slice of history you might not know much about, this is an interesting, well researched and well-written book.
Another novel about a remarkable woman I enjoyed reading was THE AVIATOR’S WIFE, by Melanie Benjamin, about the early life of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. In my review of the book on Goodreads I wrote: “A really interesting fiction and history mix about Anne Morrow Lindbergh – Charles Lindbergh’s wife – and the daughter of the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico. After they married, many do not know that Anne learned to fly like Charles, traveled with him on many flights, and became the first licensed female glider pilot in the U.S. 
I liked learning more about the Lindberg’s lives … and about Anne’s life. Her book GIFT FROM THE SEA has always been a favorite of mine … but I learned a new side of her in this novel. I loved her spunk in learning to fly with Charles and in being his navigator on many harrowing trips.” The book uncovered aspects of this prominent woman I knew little of. We often assume women of great prominence and wealth enjoy only happiness but they also have their personal trials to battle. Although much of Anne’s life is well known, like the kidnapping of her son, the truths given in this novel were new to me. After reading this book I can more easily understand why Anne wrote: “I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God. …Woman must come of age by herself … She must find her true center alone.”
When I read GRANDMA GATEWOOD’S WALK I had never heard of Emma Rowena Gatewood (1887-1973). In 1955, she told her Ohio family she was going on a walk but didn’t mention where she planned to go or how long she might stay. She wore sneakers, simple clothes and packed her extra clothing, supplies, an army blanket, an old shower curtain and some money into a pillowsack tote and set off to walk the 2,168-mile Appalachian Trail (AT). “I thought it would be a nice lark,” she told reporters later. 
She was 67 years old, the mother of 11 children and 23 grandchildren, and she became the first woman to hike the AT alone in one season. Emma survived many perils and problems, which the book details beautifully, but the book also delves into the hardships of Emma’s life before she set out on her hike, helping you to see the courage she displayed as a younger woman that she, undeniably, drew on to later hike the AT. I was privileged to meet the book’s author Ben Montgomery, the journalist who gathered all Emma’s story and then wrote it. As a hiker myself, the book was truly humbling to me. I hike and walk only maintained park trails and would never brave, at midlife, the overnights and hardships of hiking the full length of the Appalachian Trail as Emma did. This book is a great read about a heroic woman. Don’t miss it!
I read the book KISSES FOR KATIE with my Book Club group, my first time to learn about Katie Davis Majors. A Nashville Tennessee girl, Katie, with every advantage, was senior class president and homecoming queen, ready to head away to college, when she went on a short mission trip to Uganda. In Jinga, Uganda, the orphan children touched her heart. 
Against her parents’ judgment and all her friends’ advice, Katie returned to Uganda at the end of her senior year to work teaching with the orphans. Life in Uganda was not easy and the way was hard – and you can’t help but think of Katie’s youth, as you read her story, and that she traveled to Africa alone and without family or friends. But she persevered and in time founded Amazina ministries and fostered thirteen children. “Courage is not about knowing the path,” she wrote. “it’s about taking the first step.” This is a beautiful story of one young girl’s courage to do what she feels God is calling her to do. Katie is now married, has adopted the thirteen children and has a child of her own, and is still working in Uganda. She has also written a second book about her work in Africa called DARING TO HOPE. You will find some beautiful YouTubes of the work of Katie’s ministry on the amazima.org website. This book will really touch your heart.
Another heart-touching book, and a better-known story than Katie’s, is Malala Yousafzai’s in the bestselling book I AM MALALA. When the Taliban came into Pakistan, Malala courageously continued to attend school and to speak out in ways women under the Taliban, were not to do. In 2012, at fifteen Malala almost paid with her life for refusing to be silenced and for continuing to study and learn. 
On the bus home from school, she was shot in the head at point blank range and wasn’t expected to live. But ten days later she woke up in a hospital in England and after months of surgeries and rehab, Malala made a new home in the UK. She has continued since to vie for women’s rights and in 2014 won the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts. Every day Malala works and fights for girls to receive safe and quality educations. She wrote, “We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.” Recently, she attained a college degree to better prepare her for more work ahead. “I tell my story not because it is unique,” she says, “but because it is the story of many girls…. Do not wait for someone else to come and speak for you. It’s you who can change the world.”
To close this blog, I want to mention a sweet warm-hearted novel by Richard Maltby, Jr, called MISS POTTER about the life of Beatrix Potter. This book was also made into a movie also titled MISS POTTER and was a total delight, if you haven’t seen the movie, I encourage to find it and to look for Maltry’s book about Potter’s life. Helen Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) was born into a well to do family in South Kensington outside of London, England. 
Beatrix was smart and industrious and studied under a number of governesses. She and her younger brother Bertram both loved to draw and spent hours out of doors making sketches of their many pets and of the animals around the family’s property. Her parents hired art teachers and Beatrix became an adept scientific illustrator and greeting card designer. In a time when women of her class usually simply married and stayed at home, and when working “in trade” was frowned upon by British society, Beatrix was unusual. Maltby’s book tells all of this story in a captivating way and how Beatrix went on to become as well known and beloved author of children’s books. I loved the special insights in this story of how Beatrix envisioned her book characters as so real that she conversed and talked with them and felt she could even visually see them as she worked. The movie story tweaks a few facts in Potter’s real life, but both book and movie are a delightful look at a talented, unusual, and independent young woman of her time. I love Beatrix’s quote: “I hold that a strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations” and her more humble comment: “If I have done anything, even a little, to help small children enjoy honest, simple pleasures, I have done a bit of good.”
Happy Reading everyone. I hope you enjoy these and many other books out there about remarkable women who have made a difference in their worlds.
Note: All photos my own, from royalty free sites, or used only as a part of my author repurposed storyboards shown only for educational and illustrative purposes, acc to the Fair Use Copyright law, Section 107 of the Copyright Act.
About twelve years ago I wrote an article that was republished in several newsletters about how writing books helps to transport me to other places and lives. However,I also experience the same joy traveling to other places and lives by reading books. Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote: “Travel far, pay no fare … a book can take you anywhere.” My life has never brought me the opportunity for great travels, but in books I have visited far away places and sampled lives in other countries I’d never have experienced otherwise. Though books I jump on a magical tour bus, taking me off to wonderful places.
Romance authors Julia Quinn and Mary Balogh have carried me off more recently to rural villages and vast country estates in their lovely regency titles. English author Anne Perry has swept me away to London through her intriguing Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mysteries, like The Cater Street Hangman, and Anna Lee Huber has kept me enthralled with her delightful Lady Darby books set in different spots around the British Isles. I also loved every one of James Herriott’s books about a country vet in the Yorkshires, beginning with All Creatures Great and Small.
As a younger reader I discovered Nora Roberts through her romance series set in Ireland that made that beautiful coastal scenery and Ireland’s small towns come alive for me, especially the Irish Trilogy starting with Jewels of the Sun. Michael Phillips took me to Scotland in his books, too, like Angel Harp, and M.C. Beaton took me visiting time and again to Scotland with her humorous coastal mysteries about Hamish Macbeth. 
Recently I’ve traveled to more remote Scottish towns and to the Cornwall coast in Jenny Colgan’s captivating stories—and in fact, I’m reading one of her books right now.
Always wishing I could travel to France, I first visited there as a girl reading the Madeline books, and later Collette’s Claudine novels and Dumas’s books like The Three Muskateers. More recently I traveled to France and down the Seine on a bookstore barge in Nina George’s charming novel The Little Paris Bookshop and to Paris, also, in Colgan’s The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris. 
Moving on to Italy, I loved visits there through E. M. Forster’s A Room With a View and Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun. And Susan Elizabeth Phillips book Breathing Room, set in Tuscany, was also a fun read.
Although most books I read set abroad are in Europe, I’ve ventured further to Botswana, Africa, many times via Alexander McCall Smith’s Ladies #1 Detective Agency series—a total delight with every book. I’ve taken adventures to other countries, too, with unlikely spy Emily Pollifax in Dorothy Gilman’s Mrs. Pollifax series. I also enjoyed trips to Canada, earlier as a girl, with Nancy Freedman’s Mrs. Mike and L.M. Montgomery’s beautiful Anne of Green Gables novels. 
And in recent years I’ve enjoyed following Louise Penny’s stories about Inspector Gamache, with The Beautiful Mystery still my favorite of that Canadian series. For trips to Alaska I’ve traveled with my friend Shannon Brown, writing as Cathryn Brown, in her Alaska series romances. I’ve also ventured to many unusual spots, like to Israel and Jerusalem, with Laurie King’s character Mary Russell and Sherlock Homes.
Back in the U.S. I’ve traveled to a lot of state parks in Nevada Barr’s ranger mysteries and I’ve come to know and love small towns in North Carolina in Margaret Maron’s wonderful mystery series about Judge Deborah Knott, beginning with The Bootlegger’s Daughter. And, of course, I’ve read every one of Jan Karon’s Mitford books, set in small town North Carolina, too. There are so many wonderful Southern authors I’ve traveled with, too many to ever mention and applaud here … but I loved reading all Eugenia Price’s Georgia coastal books, Carolyn Hart’s fun Death on Demand mysteries, Susan Boyer’s South Carolina Lowcountry series, and Deborah Smith’s engaging books set in the Georgia and North Carolina mountains. …
I also enjoyed, and still follow, Rita Mae Brown’s Sneaky Pie books about Harry and her pets who solve small town mysteries and murders in rural Virginia, Sherryl Woods books like The Sweet Magnolia series, and Victoria Thompson’s Gaslight Mysteries set in New York’s earlier days.
As a horse and cowboy lover, I read every Zane Grey mystery set out west and I like Linda Lael Miller’s romance books about cowboys and ranches, too. A favorite recent book that I laughed a lot over was Ree Drummond’s story of marrying her cowboy husband The Marlboro Man in Black Heels and Tractor Wheels, a fun read worth looking for. 
Susan Wittig Albert’s China Bayles mystery series keep me traveling frequently back to Pecan Spring Texas, and authors like Robyn Carr, Susan Wiggs, and Debbie Macomber keep taking me on wonderful trips out west and to the Pacific Northwest coast.
And, yet, J.L. and I also love to travel, explore, and hike nearer to home, so one day we decided to begin sharing our adventures in guidebooks. First, we wrote a hiking guide to take you on trails in the Smokies. Then we took off and visited all 56 Tennessee state parks and wrote another guidebook called Discovering Tennessee State Parks. So you can “armchair” travel to our world here in Tennessee—and plan a trip here, too!
Because I’ve always enjoyed my “Armchair” travels in novels so much, I decided to also write some novels of my own to bring you traveling to my part of the world—and to different places around the Smoky Mountains I love so much. The picture here shows my four latest mountain books,Daddy’s Girl set in Bryson City, Lost Inheritance set in Gatlinburg, The Interlude set on the Millhouse Resort in Greenbrier, and Happy Valley set below the Chilhowee Parkway in rural Happy Valley. There are nine more to enjoy, too, and with a new one publishing this spring!
We don’t travel far and wide—or to faraway places—even for vacation, but we have gone year after year to a lovely quiet island on the South Carolina coast, Edisto Island. So I thought I’d take readers there to visit, too. You can “Armchair Travel” to visit Edisto right now in my new trilogy, with two books out now and the third coming in the new year.
After I completed my annual Smoky Mountain book this spring, I began to research and plan four new future books, that I’d envisioned earlier, focused around a Lighthouse on the South Carolina coast. As a past professor, I love to research and learn about new things, and I uncovered so many interesting facts and fascinating stories about lighthouses that I never knew before while beginning to plan these books. A lot of the gathered knowledge I found, and many colorful stories I unearthed, will find their way into my new Lighthouse books, but I decided it might be fun to share some of the information I’ve discovered in my September blog.
Many more lighthouses were soon built along the Atlantic coast and then on the Great Lakes and the West Coast. Lighthouses served as well-needed navigational aids in this earlier time period. They warned boats of dangerous areas in the sea and they helped to guide ships into harbor, sort of like traffic lights and signs do on land. The purpose of lighthouses was always to light the way for ships at sea, to keep them from crashing against rocks or reefs in storms and bad weather, to help them find their way in the dark, and to act as points of reference for sea captains. Every lighthouse had its own unique appearance and its own individual system of flashes that let ships know exactly where they were long before modern navigational systems helped pinpoint the way.
Thinking about a Lighthouse book: After learning about lighthouses in general, I began to look at pictures of lighthouses to decide what the “fictitious” lighthouse in my book might look like. I knew it would sit on a slightly rocky chunk of coastline on an island at the north end of Edisto Island with the Atlantic Ocean to the forefront and the North Edisto River to the side. Considering how many wrecks occurred in past at this location, many on a dangerous shelf of narrow barrier islands called the Deveaux Bank, I’m surprised a lighthouse was never built at this point, as there are lighthouses up and down the Atlantic Coast where other major rivers meet the sea. The small island I’m fictitiously using for my book setting is a quiet, practically unpopulated one, now in a conservatorship. Only a handful of people own land there and further future development is restricted on this island portion of Botany Bay Island, which is separated on all sides by water. In researching the history of the island I learned it had once been called Watch Island in the past with a small fort on it, so I took back that old name for the island for my story. I also decided to name the lighthouse the Deveaux Lighthouse, for the Deveaux Bank nearby and, fictitiously, for the family I’ve created who have kept the light through multiple generations.
Additionally the Lighthouse Station grounds included several smaller cottages for assistant keepers or visiting supervisors, a bell house or fog house, storage buildings, a boathouse or two, one or boat docks, a well for water, fuel storage buildings, a garden area, and an outdoor “necessary house” or bathroom. Often the Lighthouse Station was fenced or walled all around with pathways leading between the different areas. The Station looked almost like a small community…. which explains why many of these Lighthouse Stations were more easily converted later to tourist resorts with cozy, seaside inns, gift shops, rental cottages, and museums. You may have seen one of these famous inns, the Portland Lighthouse and Inn, pictured above, on a visit to the coast of Maine or in looking through lighthouse photos or paintings.
Because most lighthouses were deactivated by the mid 1900s, they were frequently sold to parks or individuals to convert to tourist destinations or even to renovate as private homes. Today, many lighthouses are actually for sale at bargain prices to those who will fix them up, allow tourist visits, and who don’t mind living in often remote locations. You can visit many lighthouses along the Atlantic and Pacific coast, and abroad as well. We recently visited Hunting Island Lighthouse, shown in the photo at left, at Hunting Island State Park in South Carolina, not far from Edisto and Beaufort. Many of the Huntington Island Light’s old station buildings have been preserved, and at this lighthouse, too, you can climb to the top of the lighthouse on steep spiral stairs—if you are able—to look out across the ocean from a platform near the top.
In these times when life is quieter, and we are all staying closer to home, I want to encourage you to still find time to get out-of-doors in nature. It has been proven to be healthy and healing physically and emotionally. Even if you can’t travel abroad, take cruises or long trips, you can still head out for a day to one of your state parks.
With July and warm summer weather here, I hope all of you will find ways to get out into the healing wonder of nature. After many of us have been cooped up for so long with the corona virus going on and quarantines in many places, I think our inner being literally hungers to get outside again—to take a walk, look up at green trees and into the blue sky, stick our toes into a cool mountain stream or lake, and see some of the beauty of nature again. There is something healing to our souls, uplifting to our minds, and definitely good for our physical well being in getting outside in the natural world. The smile on my face in this photo at right, which appeared on the back of my first published book, shows how happy and peaceful taking a walk in nature always makes me feel. I never fail to come back happier and more refreshed, less stressed or worried than when I left.
For my first hike discussion … If you’ve read my latest novel HAPPY VALLEY, you may remember Juliette and Walker hiking trails around the Abrams Creek Campground in the Smoky Mountains, not far from their homes in the Happy Valley. This is a quieter part of the mountains where you can take a walk or hike and avoid big crowds. A favorite trail of ours that begins directly behind the Abrams Creek Campground is the Cooper Road Trail. It’s an easy, wide roadbed trail suitable for most anyone, and you can walk as far as you’d like—even all the way to the trail’s end in Cades Cove! You’ll find picnic tables and a nice restroom in the campground, and there are several other fine trails here you might enjoy walking, too, like the Rabbit Creek Trail, Cane Creek or Beard Cane trails and the Little Bottoms Trail that climbs over Hatcher Mountain and down to Abrams Falls by a back route. But the Cooper Road Trail is the easiest and it’s always a beautiful walk.
Instead, choose trails in less “touristy” areas, which are equally picturesque. On the Townsend-Cades Cove side of the mountains, try one of the trails off the Tremont Road like the West Prong or Lumber Ridge trails, the trail to Spruce Flat Falls out of the Tremont Center, or the Middle Prong Trail at the end of the Tremont Road. The latter is one of our favorites, a broad trail following the stream past waterfalls and cascades. If you want to see a bit of Cades Cove without getting into the heavy traffic there, park right before the road begins and hike the Rich Mountain Loop Trail to the John Oliver cabin. This will give you a chance to see a lovely part of the cove and a historic home without getting into the crowds. You might remember Jenna and Boyce hiking this trail in my book TELL ME ABOUT ORCHARD HOLLOW.
Another less crowded area of the Smokies where we just hiked last week is in the Cosby area of the Smokies. From Gatlinburg follow Hwy 321 east to the right turn leading into the Cosby Campground. Along the road you’ll pass the trailhead for Gabes Mountain Trail leading to Hen Wallow Falls. Rhea, Carter, and Carter’s son Taylor hiked to this falls in my book SAVING LAUREL SPRINGS. On our last visit to Cosby, J.L. and I hiked parts of two trails not far from the picnic and campground area—the Low Gap Trail and the Lower Mount Cammerer Trail. The latter is a lengthy trail, eventually connecting to the AT, but you can hike as far as you feel led through the woods, along and across the streams. Low Gap is a steeper trail, but it parallels the creek for much of its journey with many pretty cascades. Not far away from Cosby is a lovely stretch of the Foothills Parkway, too, which you can drive a portion of for some stunning mountain views.
Two of our favorites trails in this area are the Ramsay Cascades and the Porters Creek trails. The Ramsay Cascades is a challenging trail, walking to a stunning waterfall and back. You might remember taking that hike with Mallory and Lucas in my book THE INTERLUDE. You’ll find the Porters Creek Trail at the very end of the Greenbrier Road. The parking lot at this beautiful trail is sometimes busy, especially when the wildflowers are in bloom, but once you head up the trail, things grow quieter. We love the diversity of this pretty trail. Much of the pathway hikes along the stream with many scenic spots along the way. After a mile up the trail, a side path leads over to a preserved mountain cabin, cantilever barn, and springhouse. You can sit on the porch of the old cabin to eat your lunch and imagine what it might have been like to live there deep in the mountains. 
Remnants of rock walls and a little cemetery can be found along the route and further up the way is Fern Falls, which trickles down the hillsides for about forty feet. In the spring sweeps of phacelia cover the upper trail and on the lower trail are many glorious wildflowers.
The first games I remember as a child are old classics still around today—card games like “Go Fish,” “Old Maid,””Slap-Jack,” and “Crazy Eights” … and simple board games like “Candy Land” and “Uncle Wiggly.” I remember my mother taught me to play “Chinese Checkers” and later “Parcheesi,” two of her favorites, and Dad taught me to play “Marbles,” “Jacks,” and real “Checkers.” Both taught me how to create and play Paper Games, too, that they learned as children … “Tic-Tac-Toe,” “Dot-to-Dot,” and “Hang Man.” These were popular in my Elementary School years, too, because we could scribble them on school paper and pass them around to play.
A favorite Christmas gift every year—and often at birthdays—was a new board game. I remember an early one I loved was “Game of the States” that taught me all the states, their capitals, and facts about them. We played many board games… “Monopoly,” “Clue,” “Pay Day,” “Parcheesi,” “Sorry,” and “Careers.” Later with our children I played these all again … along with new ones like “The Game of Life,” “Battleship,” “Operation,” “Hi-Ho Cherry-O,” “Chutes and Ladders,” “Risk,” ”Cootie,” and “Mastermind.”
One of our favorite family games through all the years was “Clue.” It was wonderful fun to travel from room to room to try to determine, by elimination, “who” had murdered the victim and with “what” weapon. Especially in the years when I was reading all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries I loved this game … and I found my children and my husband loved it, too. Naturally, we always had our “favorite” characters in that game and mine was always Colonel Mustard. “Clue” and the “Game of Life” were probably two of our all-time favorites that we never seemed to tire of playing.
Group and party games came into play in these years, too, “Charades,” “Trivial Pursuit,” “Pictionary,” “Twister,” “Jenga,” and fast paced games we all laughed over like “Catch Phrase.” I still like the old game of Charades, which is another old classic game. A parlor game, dating back to the 1700s in France, Charades has woven its way into many books, movies, and television shows over the years.
Lin Stepp 