A KEEPER OF FAMILY LORE

When I started writing what has become a book, I began in the middle and wrote to the end, and now I am finishing up the beginning. The book itself is made up of the stories of various family members in a Southern family...mine. While the book is a work of fiction, it is based on family stories I was told from the time I was a child until my mother died. I wanted to record all those stories for my sons and my grandchildren, but when I got serious and started writing them, I was appalled at how much I had forgotten. Since I could not with a clear conscience try to publish the result of my efforts as non-fiction, I just began making up all the parts I couldn't remember, and embellished with great glee other parts. So, some of the stories you'll read are mostly true, some are a blend of truth and embellishment, and some were born in my imagination, and only I know which is which. CLAY TANNER CALDWELL is a character based loosely on my maternal grandfather. When I started writing his story for what I realized was becoming a book, something rather remarkable happened. Henry Childers, the first of several characters born completely and unexpectedly in my imagination, showed up. It was as if he had materialized out of thin air! Until this story, every one of my characters was a compilation of people I have known and some I still know. One minute I was writing, and then it was like I got up to go get a drink of water and walked right straight into Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone"! I opened the cabinet to get a glass, and when I closed it...BOOM!...Henry was standing there at my kitchen counter. In reality he wasn't, but I stood there for a long time, pulled into a daydream where it was as if Henry just walked onto a stage in my mind and said..."How do, Miss Clarissa. I'm Henry Childers. I believe you'll be needing the services of a mortician pretty soon in your story, and I would be most happy to help you in your time of need." After I made Henry's acquaintance, I started pecking on the keyboard again, and this story began unfolding... Oh, all the names of my real family members have been changed. Their personalities and their physical descriptions have been blended with those of others. I did this to protect the guilty as well as the innocent, and besides I surely didn't want to get sued. Family litigations tend to get really messy. -- Clarissa Jo Grande Fleming

• Chapter 1 - A KEEPER OF FAMILY LORE Chapter I Clay Tanner Caldwell"Clarissa Jo Grande Fleming ..."
• Chapter 2 - A KEEPER OF FAMILY LORE Chapter 2 Clay Tanner Caldwell"Clarissa Jo Grande, narrato..."
• Chapter 3 - A KEEPER OF FAMILY LORE Chapter 3 Over the River and Through the Woods"Clarissa Jo Fleming takes a..."
• Chapter 4 - A KEEPER OF FAMILY LORE Chapter 4 Rachael Rae Caldwell Hampton"Rachael Rae Caldwell Hampto..."
• Chapter 5 - A KEEPER OF FAMILY LORE Chapter 5 Cordelia Franklin Crittenden"Clay Caldwell is learning m..."