Why I wrote the book
When I was young I rarely got to see my father’s side of the family. My grandfather, and great-grandparents died when I was just a small child. We lived way out in California at the time, and I didn’t know until recently if anyone made it back to the funerals.
I remember my father’s mother coming to stay with us a few times, and while we lived in Ohio my fourth and fifth grade years, it was easier to get to Michigan to visit. She lived upstairs in a large house that had been converted into apartments. My brother and I always slept in the front room, which had a door leading out to an open porch, but she never let us go out on it because it was too dangerous, being up on the second floor with no railings.
Milton Lytle, Michael Lytle, Hallie Plumb Lytle (1946)
The thing I remember about Battle Creek, Michigan was getting to see our houseful of cousins, most of which were boys, who had pens full of wild snakes they’d caught. I remember the buildings were dark from the smoke from furnaces in the factories there, something I wasn’t familiar with.
The cousins I knew the best moved frequently. Several times they lived in Kansas and Colorado, so I was able to see them more growing up. Another family, my father’s brother, lived outside of Chicago and I don’t remember seeing them but a few times. My other aunt lived outside New Orleans, and never had children. We did see her more often when we lived in Louisiana and Northwest Florida.
My grandmother seemed old, of course, and rather gruff. I didn’t know then about her family life, only that she didn’t have a husband, no grandfather, but I’d never had one of those anyway, so I didn’t know what I was missing.
While we lived in Ohio, we traveled next door to Indiana, where on several occasions we stayed at Turkey Run State Park. My dad tried to get back to his high school reunion and it was close to where he attended high school in Veedersburg. I don’t remember ever traveling to Brazil, except on my own a few years ago when I used Spring Break to travel around Indiana and Kentucky to try and track down some of the more elusive members of my family tree.
Near Brazil I found a genealogy library where I got the first glimpse of a census record for my Haggerty line. That gave me the first hints of James and Catherine elusive story, and I wondered about the differences in age, and whether James had waited over forty-five years for his first child.
On the Hagerty-L-Rootsweb listserv I received the information that would inspire the novel, which had started out as a short story. The many references to “Haggerty’s Disease” inspired me to do some medical genealogy to find out what could be causing the symptoms of depression, suicide, alcoholism, early onset dementia, etc.
I began to wonder what it would be like to know you had a disease like this in your family line, and what lengths a person would go to avoid passing it on. This was, of course, before the days of genetic testing and counseling.
When you think back on rural Ireland, it was unusual for a person to ever travel more than seven miles from their birthplace. That would certainly limit the gene pool of possible mates who weren’t at least distantly related to you. This would provide a fertile ground for the transmission of genetic disorders.
Medical research confirmed the presence of what I call “Haggerty’s Disease” in Donegal, Ireland and Appalachia in the United States.
I remember writing the section of the novel where James finally confesses to Cat about why he won’t marry her. I was in a hotel room in Los Angeles, attending a convention. I can still remember how intensely I felt the emotion behind the words I was writing.
The other side of the family, The Plumbs, were interesting too, if only for the fact that they immigrated to America not once, but twice. They seemed quite the adventurous sort, with my great-grandfather, Ralph, leaving behind his parents and siblings to travel to the rough copper mining town of Butte, Montana to operate a newspaper while still a teenager.
The Plumb family eventually died out because they seemed unable to produce healthy male heirs to carry on the family name. There were also two older male Plumb uncles in the area that never married. They, too, were quite adventurous, traveling all over the world (from New Zealand to England) to visit relatives on numerous occasions before WWI broke out.
Because the Plumbs were of the Anglican faith (Church of England), it would seem rather surprising that Ralph married a Catholic, was married by a priest, and had the children baptized in that faith. The many children of the marriage that died young were buried at fist in the Rest Lawn Catholic Cemetery, although Ralph, Rose Ella, and Bernadine were buried at Cottage Hill.
The last time I saw my grandmother Lytle was shortly before her death. She still lived in the same house, but now in an apartment downstairs with beautiful woodwork. There was hardly anything left of the old neighborhood, except the one house and the school behind it. It almost reminded me of an island – the one lone house standing. Alas, I do not think my grandmother even knew who I was, though my aunt tried to explain it to her several times. At least my children got to see one of their great-grandmothers before she died.
Though I have written many novels in my life, this one is the most personal because it is based on the lives of real people. I didn’t know much about them, so most of it is pure speculation, but I hope my readers enjoy James and Cat’s adventure.