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Sarah J. McNeal
Grandfather McNeal’s Trunk
It’s funny how an everyday, ordinary things we take
for granted can set off a whole series of stories. Such is the case with my
Grandfather McNeal’s trunk.
One day I was just hanging out playing a tune on my
harmonica. The harmonica was one given to me by my dad years ago when I was a
kid. We used to play tunes together like Shenandoah, a favorite of mine. I had
my feet propped up on my Grandfather McNeal’s old trunk where mementos were
kept of each generation from way, way back including pictures, old watches,
pipes and rodeo posters from Ranch 101. I was struck with an idea of how
amazing and wonderful it would be if everything in the family trunk was new.
What if I could go back to the time my father talked about, a time when townspeople
socialized at church picnics and listened to a radio show at a friend’s house
or went to the local amusement park for a night of fun? It seemed so cozy, so
comfortable and peaceful.
My mental wheels began to turn. What if my heroine
found a trunk like Grandfather McNeal’s, full of history and mystery? What
if she tried on some clothes and a wedding band and accidently fell into the
trunk? And what if that trunk possessed the magic to take her back to a pivotal
point in history and she met the love of her life?
That family trunk inspired me to write Harmonica Joe’s
Reluctant Bride. I had no idea that that book would lead me to write the
sequel, For Love of Banjo, and then more stories about the generations of
Wildings that would follow. Well, such is the magic of my grandfather’s trunk.
I am so happy that, even though I was only 7 when he
died, I had a chance to know Grandfather McNeal. He was a post Civil War
baby, born in 1866. I think about that sometimes and think how amazing it was
that I had the chance to know him. He was an educated man, a teacher who had to
earn his “real” living painting barns and houses. Because he never owned a
horse or a car, he walked everywhere. I remember him as patient and kind, a
very well-read man with old fashioned manners who still wore suspenders until
he died. The trunk he thoughtfully put together, has been my inspiration for
the Wildings of Wyoming and The Violin, a 1927 time travel story based on the
life and death of my dad’s middle brother, John Douglas McNeal.
I think many of us draw our stories from our
histories, those stories passed down to us or discovered by accident. What were
some of your stories created from your family’s history?
Harmonica
Joe ’s Reluctant Bride
Blurb:
A
haunted plantation… A trunk… And a date with destiny.
When Lola Barton inherits a rundown plantation, she
believes her life has finally taken a positive turn. But, when she finds a
mysterious trunk in the attic, it takes her into the past and to a man with
dark secrets—and she’s married to him.
BUY Links:
FLY AWAY HEART
The Great Depression…Rum Runners and Old Fears…Love Against the
Odds
Blurb:
Lilith Wilding can’t remember a time when she didn’t love the
English born Robin Pierpont, but she knows he loves another so she hides her
feelings beneath a hard veneer of self-protection.
Robin Pierpont dreams of flying airplanes and winning the heart of
the one he loves, but when he gets involved in illegal rum running to help a
friend, those dreams seem to turn into just a fantasy. When he is called upon
to face his worst fear to save Lilith’s life, his fate may be sealed in death.
Buy Links:
Sarah McNeal is a
multi-published author of several genres including time travel, paranormal,
western and historical fiction. She is a retired ER nurse who lives in North
Carolina with her four-legged children, Lily, the Golden Retriever and Liberty,
the cat. Besides her devotion to writing, she also has a great love of music
and plays several instruments including violin, bagpipes, guitar and harmonica.
Her books and short stories may be found at Publishing by Rebecca Vickery, Victory
Tales Press, Prairie Rose Publications and Painted Pony Books, an imprint of
Prairie Rose Publications. She welcomes you to her website at
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSarah,
ReplyDeleteYou grandfather would have had such interesting stories to tell. So glad you got to know him! And the trunk--how cool to have so many tangible memories of him.What's your favorite item in there?
My favorite are the letters my uncles wrote to their parents. Old letters are the best. I love looking at their handwriting and making guesses about their personalities, too.
DeleteThere were newspaper clippings from several small town newspapers in the trunk about the death of my Uncle John. He drown while fly-fishing with his friends. He was only 21. According to my dad, my grandparents went down to the river where he died and sat there all day. I wrote about John in The Violin.
Thank you so much for coming, Tracy.
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteWhat a magical gift you were given. I was fortunate to know my great grandparents on my fathers side and you are right, they had many things that have influenced my life through the years. I don't know that any of it has made it into my 'stories', but I do believe it has influenced my love of history.
May your Grandfathers trunk continue to inspire you, for it has given you some wonderful gifts. Doris
Thank you, Doris. I put a few things in the trunk, and then I gave the trunk to my nephew to carry on the tradition. It's like a living library of our family.
DeleteWonderful post, Sarah! You're right, everyday things and memories can and do inspire the stories we right. They do for me. My first book, Darlin' Irish, was inspired partly by prophetic dreams I had as a young woman. they led me to make the heroine, Jessie, have precognitive dreams and visions. This, in turn, led me to create books for her two siblings, who also possess psychic talents.
ReplyDeleteA secondary character in these books is based partly on memories of my mom's father, and on stories told by my dad about his father, who I never knew. Both men were autocratic and strongly opinionated. In Darlin' Irish the hero's father has those same traits.
Best of luck with your Wilding family books!
I wish you great success with your stories, Lyn.
DeleteMy dad told great stories. I just wish I had listened more. My maternal grandmother was also a good historian of the family, but she talked about everyone except herself, so I missed that part. I wish I had known then what I know now. I would have paid more attention to those stories, asked questions, and written things down.
Sarah, thankfully, you were inspired by this trunk and it's still working its magic on you! I knew my grandparents, but they were all really tired by the time I came along. LOL And there were so many grandkids on both sides of our family that my granddad on Mom's side took to calling the girls "sis" and the boys "bub" so he didn't have to remember our names. LOL I'm so glad you put up a picture of the trunk that started it all with the Wildings.
ReplyDeleteTalk about a treasure trove!
Cheryl
My nephew made that picture for me. He even polished up the old trunk to make it shine. LOL
DeleteGrandfather McNeal only had us for grandchildren. Donald and John died young. How sad for my dad, too, that he didn't get to spend a lifetime with his brothers. He adored John. Grandfather McNeal was the only person in my family who called me by my actual name of Sarah. Everyone in my family calls me Sal. Now there's something you probably didn't know about me. LOL He was very dignified and proper about things--no nicknames.
I have an old trunk that came from Sweden, and carved in the front is "Per Svensson till Chikago N America." I'll always wonder what all was in that trunk as it sailed across the sea.
ReplyDeleteAn old family quilt made in the 1830's was the theme of my Trail of Thread series.
Was it a family trunk? What a shame there was nothing in it.
DeleteI love trunks. I found one at an antique store (it was empty, too) and started putting my own history in it--little keepsakes and letters that man something to me. You can start a tradition any time you want to. Is the quilt one passed down through your family that gave you inspiration for your story?
What a lovely post Sarah! I just love any kind of boxes, there could be anything hiding within! The picture of your trunk is lovely, it looks really heavy. I love the color. Strange how certain things have that power to move us back and forth in time isn't it?How lucky you are to have had someone who had the foresight to place those items in there for later generations, if only they could talk. I'm working on a Contemporary Romance right now in which a trunk also figures strongly(a metal one, not wood)! Funny how we get similar ideas isn't it?
ReplyDeleteI love boxes, too, Jill. I even like old wooden drawers. LOL You ever know what treasures you might want t put in them.
DeleteEven though I only knew him a few short years, my grandfather was a huge influence on me. He was like the guardian of the old ways.
I gave a metal trunk to my best friend many years ago because she loved my grandfather's old trunk and the idea of putting away treasures, keepsakes and letters. It had wooden strips on it like my grandfather's. She loved it, and still has it with her treasures in it.
What's the title of your story, Jill?
Hi Sarah. Grandfathers and old trunks full of keepsakes, it feels so 'comfortable/comforting' don't you think? My book's working title is 'The Gypsy's Kiss'. Nearly done!
DeleteI do, Jill. My dad put things from my and my sister's childhood and connected us to the history within the trunk. After he died, I saw those things for the first time, I wept with the love and comfort I felt from seeing them there.
DeleteI wish you much success with The Gypsy' s Off, Jill.
OOps! Typo! Gypsy's What? Tee hee! X
DeleteI wrote that last part on my Kindle. It writes the word it THINKS you want to say. That faux pas slipped by me. I think I would rather have a Gypsy Kiss than have the Gypsy "off". LOL
DeleteOkay, my previous comment disappeared...trying again. How lucky to have a time-travel trunk, Sarah!
ReplyDeleteI've had that happen to me, too, Tanya. It's especially disheartening when I wrote a whole bunch, all fired up and everything--and then it disappeared.
DeleteI do feel lucky to have had ancestors with such foresight.
I appreciate that you hung in there to post something. Thank you.
Harmonica Joe's Reluctant Bride, sounds like a romantic mystery. Does anyone really know anyone? Even married couples can be strangers. Good luck with sales.
ReplyDeleteHey there, Joanne. Harmonica Joe is loaded with romance and definitely has mystery.
DeleteTrue. You can't know someone's deepest, darkest secrets unless they want you to know. Sometimes you think you know a person, and then find out you don't...maybe too late.
Thank you for dropping by.
Sarah, I inherited a heavy wooden trunk that my grandfather made for his oldest daughter (my aunt) for her to pack her 'stuff' into when she traveled to Germany to be near her soldier husband during WWII. I don't know how the trunk ended up with me instead of one of my aunt's three kids, but I'm not complaining. I love it. ;-)
ReplyDeleteWow, Kaye, that is a mystery. Lucky you. Was there any cool stuff in the trunk, or did your aunt get those things back?
DeleteMy grandfather's trunk is very heavy. I can't lift it.
Thank you so much for taking the time to come.