I Hear Music

I’m not one of those people who always knew I wanted to write. In fact, my high school creative writing teacher recommended I stick to my first creative talent: music.

I have always made music. I come from a musical family--that's me with my mother and sister just before a performance--so singing in church, on stage for talent contests, and later performing on the flute is so much a part of my life I can’t imagine going without music.

When I write, I hear music. The characters each sing for me. Like the songs of your favorite singers or bands, every story has its own “song,” its own style, melody, rhythm. Some pound at you like classic rock, some drill into your psyche like heavy metal. They might sooth you and carry you along on a lush flowing melody, or scratch at your nerve endings with a driving drumbeat. Sometimes you feel complete, other times you’re left suspended, unfulfilled.

As a writer, I try to listen to the ‘songs’ my characters sing.  Its unconscious, this music I put in my words. It is the highs and lows, the tension and release, the rhythm of conflict and the sweet melody of love. And it is important to the characters and to me.

Texas Gold was my debut novel. Jake McCain, the hero, didn’t sing much at first. He’s a very self-contained character, very serious, never giving himself permission to just be. When he finally did share that melody that is uniquely his, he was always very conscious of who was close enough to hear. Rachel Hudson, on the other hand, is a woman whose toes are always tapping, who hums when she works, and sang lullabies to her brother when he was a baby. When they finally sang together, it was downright beautiful.

Music always evokes memories for me, and those memories are woven into the tapestry of my stories. I’m so glad my creative writing teacher was wrong, and I didn’t have to choose.

What activities can you absolutely not do without music playing? Does music influence your writing, and how?

 

Tracy Garrett

Texas Gold, Available from Prairie Rose Publications
https://amzn.to/3fGmrbd

The Missouri Mule

EQUUS CABALLUS (female horse) + EQUUS ASINUS (male donkey) =

THE MISSOURI MULE

Mules have been bred and used for centuries as draft, pack, and riding animals. Mules are mentioned in the Bible and appear in Assyrian bas-relief. Here in Missouri, we consider the mule ours. The first mention of mules in Missouri can be found in newspaper articles printed during the early Santa Fe trading expedition. Between 1870 and 1900, Missouri was the leading breeder in number and quality. In 1889, there were 34,500 mules foaled in the state of Missouri alone out of a total 117,000 in the United States. Of the 330,000 sold, Missouri supplied 68,300.

The Missouri Mule was adopted as the state animal of Missouri on May 31, 1995. Nearly two hundred years before, the mule was already making a huge impact on the state. From the early 1800s to the early 1900s the mule played a central role in farming and land development. In 1870, Missouri was the largest mule-holding state in the nation, a position it held until 1900.

The typical Missouri Mule is a cross between a mare of a draft breed and a mammoth jack or male donkey. This cross produces a stout, strong animal that is more easily managed and more agile than his draft horse cousins. 

With its short thick head, long ears, thin limbs, small narrow hooves, and short mane, the mule shares characteristics of a donkey. In height and body, shape of neck and rump, uniformity of coat, and teeth, it appears horse-like. The mule comes in all sizes, shapes and conformations. There are mules that resemble huge draft horses, sturdy quarter horses, fine-boned racing horses, shaggy ponies and more.

The mule inherits from its sire the traits of intelligence, sure-footedness, toughness, endurance, disposition, and natural cautiousness. From its dam it inherits speed, conformation, and agility. Mules exhibit a higher cognitive intelligence than their parent species.

A mule does not sound exactly like a donkey or a horse. Instead, a mule makes a sound that is similar to a donkey's but also has the whinnying characteristics of a horse (often starts with a whinny, ends in a hee-haw). Sometimes, mules are known to whimper.

Handlers “generally find mules preferable to horses because they show more patience under the pressure of heavy weights, their skin is harder and less sensitive, rendering them more capable of resisting sun and rain. Their hooves are harder than horses', and they have a natural resistance to disease and insects. Many farmers of clay soil also found mules superior as plow animals.” 

Mules come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors, from minis under 50 lbs. to maxis over 1,000 lbs. Mules’ coats come in the all the varieties as those of horses—sorrel, bay, black and grey, white, roans (both blue and red) palomino, dun and buckskin, even paint, though they’re much less common. And appaloosa mares produce mules with even wilder colors than their horse cousins.

Above: 19 hands, 1,900 pounds of mule

Professor Melvin Bradley, an enthusiast who has researched the mule's legacy says, "They farmed our land, hauled our lumber, drained our swamps, took us to church and war. Now we're having fun with them."

 

Mules have been a favorite of our nation's leaders as well. George Washington was an excellent horseman, but felt horses "ate too much, worked too little, and died too young". In order to obtain an animal that better suited his needs, Washington imported jack stock from Spain and France and began breeding mules.

 

And Missouri native, President Harry S. Truman, often bragged about the superior qualities of the Missouri Mules. Proud to be the son of a horse and mule dealer, Truman invited a four-mule hitch from his hometown of Lamar to drive in his 1948 inaugural parade up Pennsylvania Avenue.

 

Terms

Draft Mule = mule offspring from a draft horse mare
Gelding = castrated stallion/jack
Hinny = hybrid of a stallion and a jenny
Horse Mule = proper term for a male mule
Jack = intact male donkey
Jenny = female donkey
John = informal term for a male mule
Mammoth Jack = jack at least 56" tall at the withers
Mare = female horse
Mare Mule = proper term for a female mule
Molly = informal term for a female mule
Mule = hybrid of jack and a mare
Muleskinner = driver of a hitch of mules
Stallion = intact multiplemale horse

http://www.cvm.missouri.edu/org/muleclub/facts.html

 

Resources: 

http://www.netstate.com/states/symb/animals/mo_mule.htm

http://www.lyndonirwin.com/mule5.htm

Wikipedia

The Imperial Russian Samovar

Back in the winter of 1979, I was fortunate to visit the Soviet Union with a group of students from my university. It was a fabulous trip – even though the KGB sent at least two “guides” with us to every city. While in Leningrad (now back to being called St. Petersburg) we explored the Rominov’s Winter Palace. This almost obscenely opulent palace, which is now home of the Hermitage Museum, boasted of marble, mirrors, ceramics, artwork and more gold guilt than a European cathedral.

I remember being fascinated with the Russian samovar. Those in the Palace were ornate and, in some cases, enormous. But nearly every home had one. Brass, silver, ceramic, plain or highly decorated, they all served the same purpose: to keep hot beverages hot or cold ones cold.

The samovar has been around since the Romans used it to heat water to dilute their wine. In
Russia, they boiled water for tea.

The samovar is a large urn-like body with a space around or under the water tank into which hot coals or bits of wood were placed. The heat from the burning material would boil the water. The early Roman models, called an “autepsa”, had the body divided into two parts with a tank for water above and another tank for burning charcoal below. Later models had a single tank for water with a compartment down the center for the hot coals.

The Russian samovar had a spigot for dispensing the hot water. A concentrated tea “syrup” was made and kept warm by placing the tea pot on top of the tank. When you wanted a cup of tea, you measured some of the concentrated tea into a cup and added hot water.

And, if you needed refreshment during the hot summer months, ice was placed into the compartment to chill the water in the samovar.

The samovar can still be bought. The Russian town of Tula has become synonymous with the samovar because it is where all the craftsmen live and work. The samovar comes in all shapes and sizes, simple brass or silver, to works of ceramic and metal-working art.

Thank you for stopping by!

Tracy Garrett
www.facebook.com/Author_TracyGarrett

 

Texas Chili

It’s nearly 100 degrees (F) and 85% humidity outside here (as it is for many of you) and I’m hungry for comfort food. Not just any soup or casserole or pasta, but chili. And not just any chili, but my mother’s chili. I have the recipe and even if I follow it exactly, it still doesn’t taste quite like when she made it. But that got me to thinking about the origins of chili.

To explore a bit, let’s dig into the history of the state dish of Texas, chili. The one thing known for certain is that chili did NOT originate in Mexico. The Diccionario de Mejicanismos, published in 1959, defines chili con carne as (roughly translated): “detestable food passing itself off as Mexican, sold in the U.S. from Texas to New York.”

Historians believe chili came from the Canary Islands to what is now San Antonio in the 18^th century. Dallas millionaire and chili lover, Everrette DeGolyer’s research stated that the first chili mix was a pemmican-type brick on dried beef, fat, pepper, salt, and chile peppers pounded together and shaped into bricks for the cowboys and gold prospectors around 1850. A brick could be dropped into a pot with water and boiled into, well, chili.

In Texas prisons the “bread and water“ was a stew made of a tough cut of beef cut into fine pieces and boiled with chiles and spices. The food became a kind of status symbol of the Texas prisons and the inmates used to rate jails on the quality of their chili.

Texas chili went national in 1893, when Texas set up a San Antonio Chili Stand at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

You can still get the original spice blend created in 1890 from Pendery’s World of Chilis and Spices in Fort Worth. (www.Penderys.com)

Any chili afficionado will tell you it all starts with the meat, or in the case of Texas chili, beef. Ranching is big business in Texas, after all. To compete in the Terlingua Chili Festival, the most famous chili competition in the world, you must use beef, cut up in some fashion. Strips, chunks, cubes, but some version of chopped up beef. I use ground (gasp!).

Next you brown and drain the meat; add… Well, here. I’ll let William Clark Green tell you how to make it.  

The Chili Song – performed by William Clark Green

See you next month!

Tracy

Colonel Sarah Bowman, The "Great Western"

Born Sarah Knight in 1812 or 1813, in either Tennessee or Missouri, according to the Handbook of Texas, Sarah A. Bowman was a “mountain of a woman who stood six feet two inches tall” and carried the nickname “Great Western,” in a possible reference to the contemporary steamship of that name, which was noted for its size. Texas Ranger John Salmon Ford said of her, "She could whip any man, fair fight or foul, could shoot a pistol better than anyone in the region, and at black jack could outplay (or out cheat) the slickest professional gambler."

In her lifetime, Sarah was an innkeeper, camp cook, nurse, wife, and madam. She gained fame and the title “Heroine of Fort Brown” as a camp follower of Zachary Taylor’s army during the Mexican-American war. In 1845, when her husband enlisted in the Army at Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, Missouri, Sarah signed on as a laundress, a position that included food, shelter, and the opportunity to earn a salary three times that earned by her Army private husband. By the time the Army arrived at Corpus Christi Bay, in Texas, her duties also included cook and nurse.

When the Army received orders to advance into Mexico, rather than stay with her ill husband, or travel with the rest of the wives onboard a ship, she purchased a wagon and mule team and drove on land with the troops. As they reached the Arroyo Colorado, they were threatened by the Mexican Army. As the Commander hesitated, it is said Sarah rode to the front of the assembled troops and told him, "If the general [Taylor] would give me a strong pair of tongs, [men’s trousers] I'd wade that river and whip every scoundrel that dared show himself." Inspired by her, the men crossed the river and scattered the Mexican troops.

When her second husband, Borginnes, was assigned to Fort Texas (then named Fort Brown), she operated an officer’s mess. When the majority of the troops moved to the coast, Mexican forces camped directly across the Rio Grande attacked the fort. While most of the women in the fort retreated to the bunkers to sew sandbags, Sarah remained at her post. For the next week she prepared food and carried buckets of coffee to the troops manning the fort's guns, even finding time to care for the wounded and other women. She prepared three meals a day even though bullets struck both her bonnet and bread tray—though she did requisition a musket just in case.

Following the battle, Sarah established the American House in Matamoros. In addition to food, lodging, and stables for soldiers' horses, the establishment also served as a saloon and brothel. As Taylor moved the Army, the American House went along, first to Monterrey and then on to Saltillo.

Sarah again saw action at the Battle of Buena Vista, where she prepared food and coffee, reloaded weapons and carried wounded off the battlefield, earning her a new  nickname: “Doctor Mary.” Following her actions on the field of battle, tradition says General Winfield Scott ordered a military pension for her.

When the troops moved on to California, Sarah was told only military wives were allowed to join the column. Since her second husband was gone—or dead—she couldn’t go. Legend says she mounted her horse and rode through the soldiers shouting “Who wants a wife with $15,000 and the biggest leg in Mexico!”

In early 1849, Sarah arrived in what is now El Paso, Texas. There she established an inn catering to those heading west for the California Gold Rush. She was El Paso’s first Anglo woman and the town’s first madam.

In 1852, with her new husband, Sarah moved west to Yuma Crossing. As Yuma’s first business operator, she cooked and did laundry for the officers at the fort. After a time, she opened a hotel near Fort Yuma, as well as Fort Buchanan and in Patagonia, Arizona.

Sarah Bowman, "The Great Western," died December 22, 1866, from a spider bite. Following her death, she was made an honorary colonel in the Army and buried with military honors in the Fort Yuma Cemetery. When Fort Yuma was decommissioned, her body, along with 158 soldiers’, were exhumed and moved to San Francisco National Cemetery.

For more information, visit Sarah in The Handbook of Texas:

Tracy

HOUSE ON THE ROCK

 Just north of Dodgeville, Wisconsin, atop a rocky bluff with a view of a tree-filled valley, sits an architectural marvel of unique rooms, streets and gardens called “House on the Rock.” Envisioned, designed and mostly built by architect Alex Jordan Jr., this house is an amazing combination of talent and whimsy. Built, literally, into the rock, with trees in many places growing through the floor and ceiling, the rooms wind around the natural landscape, creating wonderful vistas and cozy, cushioned nooks just begging for someone to build a fire and snuggle in with a good book.

 

The house isn’t one structure. It’s a complex of buildings surrounded by gardens and forest, including the Gate House, the Organ Room, the Doll House Room, and the world's largest indoor carousel, which boasts 269 handcrafted animals, 20,000 lights and 182 chandeliers. The most incredible (and mildly unsettling) space is the Infinity Room, a steel and glass “needle” that extends 218 feet out over the scenic valley and 156 feet above the forest floor, with 3,264 windows overlooking the valley. More than 140 of those 218 feet are unsupported, hanging in mid-air.

 

Based on a short piece on the either the History Channel or Discovery Channel, I expected a grand house with sweeping rooms and awe-inspiring views. Instead I was completely charmed by the hobbit-house feel with low ceilings with natural rock walls, the glow of dozens of tiffany-style lamps, and tiny spaces crammed full of art and books and thousands of whimsical creatures either made by Mr. Jordan or commissioned by him to fill a particular spot in the house. All the while we were walking through the structure, I kept wanting to settle in and talk or debate with friends.

By all accounts, Mr. Jordan loved to do just that. He enjoyed company and hosted many parties.

I think my favorite spot was the room where a small organ, a harp and a piano were crowded together and overshadowed by a great winged dragon.

If you haven’t seen this delightful architectural marvel, add it to your bucket list. I will definitely be going back.

The Enchanting Frozen Charlotte

During our initial tour of the Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City, Kansas, I was amazed at the thousands of items from the 1800s that were preserved in mud in a farmer’s field.

“The Arabia Steamboat Museum is home to a true time capsule of frontier life in the 1800s. The Arabia was headed up the Missouri River in the fall of 1856 when she struck a tree snag and sank just north of Kansas City. Her cargo hold was full of 200 tons of supplies bound for general stores and pioneer settlements.” 

[http://www.visitkc.com/member-details/index.aspx?id=28981]

The Arabia was a typical western steamboat. A twin side-wheel steamer, she was built long and flat to carry maximum cargo. Measuring 171 feet long, with three decks and a wheel house above the water line, she plied the waters of the mighty Missouri River, pushing upstream at more than 5 miles per hour.

On August 30, she left St. Louis headed for Sioux City, Iowa, by way of Kansas (present-day Kansas City, MO), Weston (MO), St. Joseph (MO), and Council Bluffs (IA).  The Missouri River was wide and shallow and her rushing muddy waters hid dangerous snags—tree trunks that had fallen into the water when the river undercut their roots. Going full steam upriver against the current the Arabia struck the trunk of a large submerged walnut tree that smashed her hull open. She sank fast, until only the wheelhouse was visible, and that quickly broke up in the current.

All the 130 passengers and crew got off safely, but the cargo was buried in sand and mud at the bottom of the Missouri. Over the years, the river changed course with the floods and dry times, layering the site of the wreck under successive years of dirt. When the Arabia was finally located in 1986 she lay in a farmer’s corn field half a mile from the current river’s course and under 45 feet of dirt—and below the water table.

It took 4 months and twenty (20) irrigation wells pumping out up to 20,000 gallons of water per minute to get to the Arabia. The team of family and friends brought up boxes, barrels and crates of frontier merchandise, both necessities and available luxuries, items meant for General Stores all along the river: castor oil, needles, nutmegs, windowpanes, brass and silver locks and keys, eyeglasses, syrup bottles, rubber overshoes and wedding bands; jars of pickles that were still edible (yes, one of the team tried one); French perfume that still held it’s scent thanks to the ambergris that was a main ingredient; carpenter’s tools; a Frozen Charlotte figurine; buttons and scissors; even over one million Venetian glass beads meant as trade goods.

Of all the items, I was enchanted by that Frozen Charlotte. Not the gold or diamonds or beautiful venetian glass, but a tiny doll. The three-inch doll was discovered wrapped in wool and tucked at the bottom of a carpenter’s tool box.

Manufactured from 1850-1920, the Frozen Charlotte dolls ranged in size from less than 1” to more than 18”.

If your grandmother had a bathing baby doll in a little porcelain tub—that’s a type of Frozen Charlotte.

The doll was named for a popular American Folk Ballad, Fair Charlotte, which tells of a young girl (Charlotte) who froze to death on a sleigh ride because she refused to dress warmly. The Frozen Charlotte appeared as everything from a charm in a Christmas Pudding to the inhabitant of a doll house to the pampered favorite possession of many little girls.

Since our visit to the museum, I think of the Frozen Charlotte on the Arabia at odd moments. Who was it meant for? Was a hard-working carpenter who’d been earning money back East bringing a gift for his daughter in St. Joseph? Or perhaps a litle girl had wrapped her favorite doll in a bit of wool blanket and hid it at the bottom of her daddy’s tool box as a momento, a reminder that she was waiting for him at home.

Definitely a story starter.

FINDING RESEARCH GEMS IN ODD PLACES

Previously published in 2017.

I love history. That’s no surprise, of course, to anyone who knows me. I not only enjoy writing about the past but researching those bits and pieces that make the historical story I’m writing realistic, interesting and accurate.

Research comes in many forms. I can spend hours in a library, hunting through books. Or online, looking for one particular fact. But my favorite type of research is the kind I didn’t plan.

You’ve probably had the same experience. You stop to grab lunch at a restaurant off the freeway and discover the nearby town has, for more than a hundred years, hosted a festival in celebration of prickly pears. Or that there is a fully restored Civil War-era mental hospital only a few blocks away.

In my trips to research a story, I’ve come across some fun facts. Did you know there was a salt war in Texas? Neither did I was researching for this blog. Bonus: I discovered the Texas Historic Sites Atlas while looking for a picture of the marker.

Were you aware there was a Revolutionary War battle in St. Louis, Missouri? That’s right, halfway up the mighty Mississippi. The Battle of Fort San Carlos was fought when British-led Sioux, Sac, Fox and Winnebago warriors attacked a newly built French entrenchment in May of 1780. That historical fact came from a local newspaper article my mother forwarded to me.

Or that the first major Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi was The Battle of Wilson’s Creek, just south of Springfield, MO. I learned that when I drove by the exit sign off the interstate. Though the north “won”, they were exhausted and low on ammunition, so they retreated to Springfield, giving the Confederates control of southwestern Missouri for the duration of the War.

Ever heard of Crash, Texas? It’s a town that was built for the express purpose of allowing spectators to witness a train crash up close and personal. A friend sent me that news story.

Then there’s the Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race, begun in 1848 and revived in 1977. I found out about it when researching the coach stops along the Santa Fe Trail after visiting the Pony Express Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri.

[Photo attribution: CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1118519]

I love running across obscure information while I’m researching something else. And you can find some of the most interesting—and mostly useless—tidbits in some unlikely places. ebay® is one place that surprised me. I found some cool info on china and crystal and Texas artifacts there while researching my release, Wild Texas Hearts.

For Sale Now at Amazon

Now, please excuse me. There’s a museum website I want to peruse.

What’s the most unusual fact you discovered in the most unlikely place?

19th Century Bling ~ Watch Chains & Fobs

My maternal grandmother was a pack rat. We discovered this years ago when, at her insistence, the family began cleaning out her home and readying it to sell.

After three days of sorting, my sister, mother and I sat down to go through her jewelry boxes. The memories were fun – the bird and flower and dragonfly pins she always wore when teaching because her kindergarten and first grade students loved them. [The articulated owl was my favorite.] We found several cameos. And pearls, of all lengths. Seems GGG-Great Grandmother Grace loved pearls.

In a box marked “Keepsakes” we found hat pins and buttons and old marbles. And a watch fob. The card with it says it belonged to GGG’s father, my Great Grandfather Ole, a Norwegian wheat farmer from North Dakota.

The chain is nothing fancy but there is a bit of bling on it that brought a wonderful surprise. The square gold locket fob hanging from the center held an old photo of my Great Grandmother Julia.

The find got me thinking: what kind of bling would you find on a gentleman’s dressing table in the 1800s?

A fancy button waiting to be sewn back onto a vest. We found a few of those, military coat buttons mostly, carefully pinned to cards identifying the owners.

Cufflinks of gold, perhaps declaring the gentleman's membership in an organization like the Masons.

The most common bit of bling would likely be a pocket watch and chain, that extra little something that showed a man's taste, his position, and sometimes offered a glimpse into his life.

The pocket watch has been around since the 1500s. Originally a status symbol only the very rich could afford, by the 19^th century most anyone who wanted one could buy one.

Attached to the pocket watch would be a chain, one end secured to his clothing, the other to the watch. Most commonly, the chain would hook through a button hole on his vest or coat, leaving the chain to drape across his middle to the pocket containing the watch. The chain was functional--it kept his watch attached to his person should it accidentally slip from the pocket--but it could also be jewelry.

My Great Grandfather's watch chain was made of human hair. I assume the chain was braided by Julia for Ole--perhaps it was a gift for him when they were betrothed. I can imagine him, all spiffed up and looking proud, with that chain and fob adorning his vest.

What is a fob, you ask? Fobs are medallions that would hang from the end of a gentleman’s watch chain. Their purpose was to help pull the watch from their vest pocket.

They could be made of the same material as the chain: gold, silver, hair, etc. Here's a good example - the fob is the small length of braided hair chain hanging by the button finding.

Do you see the loop at the end? From there the gentleman could hang almost any bit of bling he wished. The fob could display the family crest.

Or be covered with gold and jewels.

It could be a locket, like Great Grandfather Ole's.

Or perhaps a cameo.

There were Double Albert chains, named for Queen Victoria's husband, with a fob hanging from the center.

And the fob wasn't an exclusively male piece of jewelry. Women commonly wore very ornate little fobs such as decorated balls or baskets of flowers or lockets.

In Victorian times, garment clip chains were worn by women on the pocket of a blouse or waist band of a skirt and were worn by men clipped directly on the trouser pocket or vest pocket.

Women also wore their watches on long chains, or slides. The slide was a very long chain with a slide in the middle that could be adjusted to the length that looked best with the lady's garment. The slide itself could be engraved, or decorated with seed pearls or small gemstones.

Or perhaps she preferred to wear a pin.

The possibilities were only limited by the wearer's taste and financial means.

What's the most unusual watch fob you've seen?

Pass the Ketchup, Please

With a need to eat more wisely as I age, I spend a lot of time in the grocery store reading labels. While I have eliminated some foods from my shopping list that used to be standards, one staple I still insist on having is ketchup. However, when I realized how much sugar and salt go into my favorite condiment, I wondered if I could make it at home. And because I love history—and the history of the American west in particular--the next thought was ‘where was ketchup created’ and did they have it in the old west?

The origins of ketchup are thought to be in a Chinese pickled fish sauce or brine made in the late 1600s. The British brought the table sauce back from their explorations of Malay states—present day Malaysia and Singapore—and by 1740 it was a staple in their cuisine. The Malay word for the sauce was kĕchap, which evolved into “ketchup” and became “catchup” and “catsup” in America.

Original versions of “ketchup” were made from lots of different savory items. One very popular one in America was mushrooms. Check out the picture of “Mushroom Ketchup.”  The 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary defines catchup as “a table sauce made from mushrooms, tomatoes, walnuts, etc.”

Tomatoes weren’t used in making the sauce until the early 1800s. A recipe published in 1801 seems

to be the first making what you and I would recognize as ketchup—although I doubt it would taste the same. Cooks didn’t begin adding sugar to the mixture until later in the century.

Most families made their own ketchup. In 1837, a man named Jonas Yerks is credited with making tomato ketchup a national food by producing and distributing his product across the U.S. It wasn’t long before other companies joined the rush, including H.J. Heinz, who launched their brand of ketchup in 1869.

Early versions were thin and watery, more like the fish sauce than the thick tomato product we’re accustomed to, but had less vinegar than the modern recipe. In fact, I doubt we’d recognize the jar of ketchup served by a Harvey Girl in a Harvey House Restaurant in the 1880s as the same product Americans have come to love--but it’s fun to know it was there.

Tracy

Check out the six novels that make up "Under a Western Sky" today!

#blogabookscene THOSE STAR-SPANGLED FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATIONS

You know what I love about July 4^th? No, not the fireworks—I’ve never been a big fan, unless it’s the big displays exploding overhead. My favorite memories are of the picnics in the park, with the band in the shell and baseball games on the field next door.  Riding my bike through the park, listening to the laughter, meeting up with my friends… the community celebration is what I loved most about July 4th growing up. 

In the old West, the community would celebrate in a similar way. There’d be a band, speeches from politicians and prominent citizens, maybe a basket auction to raise money for a new school or a bell for the church steeple. There might be games for the kids—and the adults—like sack races and horse races. And after the playing and the speaking and the eating, the musicians would tune up for the dancing. 

Yes, I think the celebrations, even in the old West, were all about community and fun.

In WILD TEXAS HEARTS, Wolf Richards returns to Civil just in time for the celebration in the park. He joins the festivities, meets up with friends and sees a beautiful woman he’s never met go dancing by in the arms of the town’s teacher. While he’s wondering where his son and Lizzie are, the doctor takes the next dance with the beauty—and Wolf finally realizes who he’s looking at.

Excerpt from WILD TEXAS HEARTS

Wolf only paused long enough to turn his horse over to Malcolm Douglas at the livery. Flipping an extra two bits to the man to unsaddle and groom the gelding, he strode back into the sunshine, knowing his horse would be well cared for.

He could hear the fiddlers warming up by the time he joined the crowd at the schoolhouse. He greeted friends as he made his way past the tables loaded down with baskets of food waiting to be auctioned off, but he hadn’t yet spotted Cal or Lizzie.

“Richards! Over here.”

Wolf joined Harvard in the shade of a big tree.

“I wondered when you’d arrive. Cal has been watching for you since daybreak.”

“Pa! You made it.” Calvin came running around the schoolhouse, loose shirttails fanning the hot afternoon air behind him. Wolf snagged the flying body and spun his son in a circle, hugging him close.

“I promised I’d be here, didn’t I?”

“That’s what Miss Lizzie said, that you gave your word and you’d keep it no matter what. And. You. Did!” He huffed out the words as Wolf gave him another squeeze.

Wolf dropped Cal on his feet and ruffled his hair. “I do my best, son. Happy birthday, Cal.” With a flourish, he held out the new book he’d bartered from a cowboy at the last trading post he’d visited.

“Thanks, Pa. I’ve never read this one.”

“That’s why I got it for you.” He ruffled his son’s hair.

“Miss Lizzie gave me this.” He pulled a brightly painted toy from his pocket. “She whittled it and painted it and everything.”

Wolf glanced around to see if anyone was close enough to hear Cal’s slip. “That’s really nice, Cal. Where is Mister Sutter? I haven’t seen him yet.”

Cal’s grin widened and he nudged Harvard, as if the two shared a secret. “Oh, he’s around back, I imagine.” Before Wolf could question him further, one of the other boys called Cal back to their game of hoops.

“What was that all--”

“You haven’t seen the decorations around the park, have you? Millicent and the celebration committee have outdone themselves.” Harvard strolled away, ignoring Wolf’s question.

Something was definitely going on.

The half-acre of flat, open land behind the schoolhouse had been transformed. A large plank floor had been assembled for the dancing, with a raised platform at one end currently occupied by two men Wolf didn’t recognize, tuning their fiddles, Mr. Petersen holding a long saw across his knees, and Sheriff Freeman, who always had the job of calling the dances and controlling the raucous basket auction. The entire area was edged with a railing made of freshly cut tree branches wrapped in red, white, and blue bunting, befitting the day.

Wolf accepted the glass of punch Audelia Mercer insisted he try and followed Harvard around the structure. He spotted Calvin in the middle of a knot of boys, but he still couldn’t find Lizzie. He wanted to see her, needed to know how she’d fared being in town under Millicent’s watchful eye for a more than a month.

Folks took their places as the fiddlers struck up a lively reel. Carruthers strutted by, his collar so stiff he couldn’t turn his head to his partner, a lovely woman Wolf didn’t recognize. The man looked dumbstruck with awe. Who would have thought the schoolmaster would have snagged a woman in this little town? As the dance got underway, Wolf watched the couple parade past, the woman watching her feet carefully as if she wasn’t quite sure of her steps. Something about her seemed familiar, but he was certain they’d never met.

“Who is that with Carruthers?”

Harvard grinned at him. “You know her.”

“I don’t. A man doesn’t forget a woman that beautiful.”

Harvard threw back his head and laughed like a braying mule. “This evening is going to be entertaining.” He slapped Wolf on the shoulder. “Excuse me. This is my dance.”

As the music changed to a waltz, Harvard relieved Carruthers of his partner, took the woman in his arms and started moving. Her sunny yellow skirt flared as they turned and the setting sun made her hair glimmering with all the colors of autumn. Just like Lizzie’s. Where was the woman anyway?

As Wolf watched the couple, something Harvard said made his dance partner laugh, and the sound hit him like a punch to his gut.

That was Lizzie!                    

See you next month!

Tracy