Hello My Sisters,

I have been meaning to tell you that I toured the Nina and the Pinta earlier this week. They are exact replicas of Columbus' sailing ships built by master shipbuilders in Bahia, Brazil who are using design and construction techniques of the 15th century. It was so exciting to me since I had made reference to Caravels' and Naos' in the beginning of Orphan's Gift. I was the first tourist of the day so I could linger and touch and feel and day dream a little. It was everything I wrote about. The Caravels were the speedier ones because their drafts were only 7 feet...they could glide the top of the waves and the sail was smoother even in rough weather. What brave ancestors we had!

I look back on that writing time and I am convinced someone was guiding my hand and thoughts. I languished on the Nina and took it all in...that said,  I am still petrified of sailing on the ocean even on one of those big cruise ships. Give me the back waters and close to shore, it's where I belong.

Check it out at www.thenina.com <http://www.thenina.com> 

They are docked in the Ohio River until tomorrow and they make their way to Pittsburg on the 17th. They were hiring crew and if I was a little younger...I would have signed up.

love ya,

me

Sincerely,

Sally

A Letter from Jean Ellis!

Hi, my name is Jean Ellis and I too have multiple Prather ancestors -- Erasmus and John Garrett Prather .  I communicated with your sister Mary via email and got a reply from her.  She mentioned that you and another sister had written a historical novel .  I would love to know where I can find it.  My aunt started our family genealogical research and I have picked up where she left off.  Sadly she never had access to the internet- I can only imagine what she might have accomplished.  

I have not yet built a family tree - I have reams and reams of paper and have to get focused on organizing it and putting it into a tree.  I have benefitted greatly from much that is online and the hard work of many other researchers so I have dowloaded several gedcom files with the various key parts of my family history. 

I grew up in New Richmond but now live in Marietta, Ga near Atlanta.  I was able to visit the graveyard at Wood Hill where John Garrett Prather and many of this extended family members are buried.  The Clermont Genealogical society found the graves, cleaned up the stones and posted pictues online.  What a huge job but such a fantastic resource for those of us who are doing their research from afar. 

Thoughts on the New Book!

Sally, 

Last night, the Evergreen Book Club had its meeting. We chose our books for the upcoming year. One of the books chosen was Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. It strikes me that it is similar to our idea for our next book. I still feel ours will be unique but I thought you and I should probably read this book to be sure that it is different.

Let me know what you think. 

Love you, 

Peggy

------------------------------

Peggy, 

I don't think it even touches our book. We are not dealing with the Salem witch trials —but the true back story. Alice Lake died in 1651. The witch trials were not until the 1690's. Alice's tale is a sad one: post partum depression, zealots, and the interpretations of these events. We are talking about pre-marital sex and how each generation harbors its own story and the outcome of each one. These are our women, our mothers, and how we truly rock the cradle...with determination, with purpose and with strength.

Don't forget. This is our gift to our children and their children and so on. If we get rich and famous then so be it. This is our legacy and our immortality.

Sally

A Granddaughter's Wedding

Peggy,

I thought you might like a little story. I had the occasion to go to our sister Patty's granddaughter's wedding. Theresa Meder Cannis came up to me and said she loved our book, Orphan's Gift. 

"One question!" she said with exuberance. "Is there a coin?" I had to say “no” but wouldn't that be fun if there was one?

She told me that she can't wait for the next book and thanked us for writing it.

Hope that makes your day feel good.

Sally

"I never knew my birth mother...."

I never knew my birth mother, just of her, and had a couple of brief encounters with her. I was not permitted to know her by my father. I began my ancestral search after I learned of her death, and found her ashes in a woman’s closet in Kentucky. She had kept them 8 years. My mother had kept her two daughters a secret, as she went on to live her life without them, after my father divorced her during the war years. She was just 17 1/2 years old when my 33 year old father married her on the way off to war from Tennessee. I have read John Prather’s book and Sharon Doliante’s book, which were so wonderful. Orphan’s Gift put so much personality and understanding into the documentations. It is a beautifully written novel that gives Prather ancestors the feeling that they are feeling their lives as they were lived. My ancestors did not go into Ohio, so the first third of the book only applied, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book until the beautiful end. Thank you so much for writing this book.

I am from the direct line of John Smith Prather, Aaron’s brother.

Your cousin,

Linda Stone

Hello, Readers!

Hello, readers. I left you a long time ago and I need to pick up the slack. Thomas Prater (Prather) was traveling across the Atlantic Ocean in 1622. One can only imagine how horrific it had to be. One either had to be desperate, hungry, crazy or truly a pioneer keeping his eye on the prize...land. I prefer to think it was the latter.

Gratefully, there is a book with the Prather family wills. Imagine that. Susan Doliante took the time and compiled these wills. So you see, the people are real in this book. The places are real in this book. It is the stories connected with these people that are gently derived from the land, the times and our imagination.

I explained to my sisters, we are these people. We have their emotions. We have their looks. We have their perception of life. Thanks to our father the line did get a little mingled with 19th century Irish and a tinge of German. But the better part of us is our English heritage. It runs deep.

So, Thomas was in search of land and estates. Family. He wanted family.
He crossed the great ocean with anticipation and the hope of a new beginning. He did it.

Sincerely, Sally

Dear Mary, Peggy, and Sally,

Congratulations on the publication of Orphan's Gift! I just placed my order through Amazon.

I'm looking forward to learning more about our Prather bloodline than Granny and Mom had time to share.

I have always been proud of each of you, but never more proud. Mom's warmth and wisdom lives on. Indeed!

I am forever grateful.

Love,

Tom

Hi Mary, Peggy & Sally

I just wanted to tell you that I just bought your book at Amazon.com for Jim for Christmas. This was at the top of his list this year.

Congrats to you all. I am very impressed that you actually wrote a book. I am proud of myself each week when I actually write out my grocery list!

Hi to you and your families. Maybe someday soon we can have another family reunion……we would like that.

Love,
Mary

From One of the Publishers of Orphan's Gift

I read "Orphan's Gift" personally. It's a good read--just enough sex and violence!

Jim

Micropress

From: Mindy of Houston, Texas

Hi Sally!

I read it! Terrific job! I just wanted more elaborate stuff from each character. I enjoyed each character very much. I now think it should be made into a mini-series for TV - like "Rome" or the "John Adams" type series. I think it was most interesting. Don't have as many movies made on that type of history coming from people/families from the north. "Roots" - I think it could be super!!!

Tell your sisters I really enjoyed it - and congratulations to you all!!!!

Love,

Mindy

Thank you, thank you Sam for putting up my first blog...even though you are not the author of that blog. I assume full responsibility for procrastinating. I am here now and you'all might regret it. In the very beginning the idea for the book was born out of a family reunion, sister Mary's 30+ years of genealogical work, and my love for the fast read. In 2006 we had one fantastic family reunion...sisters, brothers, spouses, children, grandchildren and a smattering of first and second cousins. How sad, they would never know their family history. You know... the way, way back history.
The idea was easy to pitch to my sister Peg and Mary came along with as much enthusiasm for the project.
I'm no fool. They have the real writing talent and understand the written word. Me, I spend a lifetime with 'dangling participles'. Are they still around? I wonder.
My granddaughter, Allison, while taking her catechism class had to name someone in her life that was closest to God.(I know you're wondering where I'm going with this. Hang in there.) She chose me. Not for any Godlike qualities I assure you but for the fact that I love telling stories. Family stories. You see, it's my immortality I worry about. Without the oral history, without knowing where I came from, I would be lost.
See you next time!

Orphan's Gift Rocks

Have had word back that people who have now read Orphan's Gift enjoy learning things about history that they didn't know. We're so glad that we could put our Prather ancestors in real time and real place.

The Beginning . . .

Once the idea for the book was permanently fixed in my mind, I opened my word document page, placed my hand on the key board and didn't move a finger, a muscle, a nerve ending, but stared straight on to the computer screen. Yikes. (and a few other choice words went through my mind).

OK,OK. How does one start to write a book? For me, I decided, its music and nature and the music of nature. Chapter one, a journey across the ocean. I slipped my compact disc of Masters and Commanders(music of seafaring film classics), Eric Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra into my 'boom box'. Yes, I still have one. I don't like 'ear buds'. It's powerful stuff. As with all things I say and do, I cranked it up.