My EASTER MEMORIES

 

MOM: Hilda Charlene McNeal

While Pop was the master of gardening, nature, science, and bird watching, Mom’s super power was celebrating holidays. She had an innate gift for making them joyous occasions no matter what. Easter was one of those special happy times she created.

 

It all started with the dying of Easter eggs. It was quite a production. While the eggs were boiling we gathered the magical kit of dye tabs, metal look, paper stickers with pictured of bunnies and chicks, and that wondrous was crayon we could use to write our names and greetings. There were usually 6-8 color tabs in the packet, so we got the same number of old cups we would use to dissolve each tab using water and vinegar. We dipped the eggs into the dye using the metal loop and placed it on a rack until it dried. When we finished we had quite a pile of colorful and decorated eggs. Of course we sampled some along the way.

 

Mom made her own chocolate covered eggs. The filling was made using cream cheese, powdered sugar and something to flavor it. Our two favorite fillings were peanut butter and cherry. Ohmagosh, those chocolate covered sweets were so yummy good.

 

Even after my sister and I were grown, Mom still had those Easter baskets waiting for us on the dining room table every Easter. She crammed it full of jelly beans, marshmallow peeps, some kind of funky hard marshmallow eggs with a colored sugar coating, and of course, that great big chocolate rabbit. There would be fuzzy chicks and other toys in there when we were younger. I still have my basket and some of the toys that she put in it. The chicks with cowboy hats and bonnets are a bit faded now, but most of them are still there. I use it as a center piece for my dining table these days, but with it also comes the memories of Mom and how she made Easter a wonderful happy time.

Sarah J. McNeal

Author of Heartwarming Stories

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The McNeal Family Christmas Tree

 

Back left to right: Mom and Pop  Bottom left to right: Me and my sister, Mary

Far left: The Sad Christmas Tree

 

I’ve told the story about foraging for a Christmas tree before, but I wanted to tell it again now that I’ve found a picture of that tree to show you.

 

Every Christmas season Mom would want a Christmas tree because she was a believer in decorating for the holiday to the fullest capacity. Naturally, the task of foraging for that tree fell on Pop, my sister, and me. As much as I loved Christmas trees, I dreaded that trip into the pine forest. It required sturdy jeans, warm gloves, layers of clothes, and a pioneer to get the job done. Pop did not allow any whining along the way—and there was quite a way to go.

 

First, we had to walk past the backyard, through whatever was left in the garden, beyond the orchard, into the woods. Then the real journey began as we went down the hill to the little creek, up the steep bank over old oak trees that had fallen here and there until we reached the briar patch. Our dog, Ember, the Irish setter, was all over the place chasing tiny woodland creatures and cover in beggar lice and cock-a-burrs (getting them out of her fur was a chore for later.)

 

The briar patch was a wide strip of blackberry vines heavily protected by sharp thorns. No matter how hard we tried, those thorns caught on our clothes, scratched our hands till the blood came, and even pierced our heavy duty jeans. We would have to step high over the bushes to avoid the worst of the thorns. After a while our hips hurt and we were tired tuckered out—and we hadn’t even reached the pine forest. Ember was bouncing around, barking and running hither and yon, so at least one of us was happy and had some energy.

It seemed that every year we picked the coldest day to go looking for a Christmas tree because, by this time, we were all frozen, our hands were numb, and we just longed to get back home and get something hot to drink and warm up.

 

On this particular year our grump trio finally reached the pine forest and the end of our enthusiasm. Pop was the one who suggested we just get the first tree we came across and scurry on home. My sister and I heartily agreed. Pop and I did this one year when I was the only one still at home. We lucked up finding the best tree we ever had, but this was not that year. We took down the first tree we saw that was the least bit decent and headed home with it. The journey back to the house seemed to take more effort and we grumbled the whole way home. But I’m here to testify to the fact that Mom was happy with that tree. She didn’t complain about how shabby it looked, not even once.

 

I tried to get Pop to buy a tree one year, but oh my word, I may as well have asked him to turn over his life savings. He stared at me like I had told him I was giving up my citizenship and defecting to Russia for a moment before he let loose on me about the cost of buying a tree and how it just wasn’t American or something like that. I thought he was going to disown me. I never asked to buy a tree again.

 

For all the aggravation it was going into the forest to find a Christmas tree each year, I miss those days. I miss being in the forest, letting the dog run free, and finding our own tree. I miss the joy on Mom’s face when we brought the tree into the house, and I miss Pop making us take that dreaded trek into the woods to fetch that tree.  I’m glad at least to have these memories to treasure.

 

Did you have to take these treks into the woods for a tree or did your family have a different tradition? What is your favorite childhood memory of Christmas or the holiday season?

In Memory of Our Shared Birthday #HappyMemories

Pop looking cool like all he needs is a Panama hat

I was born on my father’s birthday. As a kid I didn’t like it much because I didn’t get to have my special day all to myself. There were times when Mom made two cakes just to make me happy. Over time though, I began to like that Pop and I had the same birthday. We began to plan what we wanted for dinner and agreed on the same kind of cake. Pop was more interested in the icing than the cake so that was easy.

Pop at work in the U.S. Weather Bureau at the Airport 

Our driver’s licenses came due on the same year, so we used to plan what “costume” we would wear for out license picture. It became fun doing these and other things on our birthday as the years went by. Mine was the one birthday he never forgot.

Pop and me

Sharing a birthday with a parent is a mighty wonderful thing…until you can’t share it anymore. In honor of Pop I play his favorite bagpipe music and, while I’m listening to it, I am sharing my birthday with him again.

Happy Birthday, Pop!

My Childhood Home

This is the house where my sister, Mary, and I were raised. Originally, the front portion was a two story log house. In the 1940's more rooms were added to the back for a big kitchen, dinning room and bathroom. The owners who renovated it made every room downstairs paneled in cedar and French doors everywhere. They also added a screened in porch on the right with a room above it with four big picture windows on 3 walls. I wish they had thought to properly in...sulate that upstairs room because it was kinda cold in winter. This picture was taken on one of those rare winter snow days, I am not certain of the year this was taken, but I'm guessing in the 1960's.

The house is still there on Tuckaseegee Road, but some things have changed, The big oak tree in the front yard is gone and the field across the road is now a housing development.
I rarely go by there. It's across town from where I live now and it makes me feel sad that strangers live there now. I have some warm and wonderful memories as well as some sad ones from all the years I lived there. If houses could talk, just imagine what they could tell us.

Memories Make Stories

My greatest asset as a writer is my memories. It is from my memories of my grandparents and their conversations about their lives that I was able to build a foundation for my historical stories. From them and my parents I learned a wealth of knowledge about how a household was run without modern conveniences, what they did to earn a living in those difficult economic  times. I also learned what they did for entertainment in a time before anything with a screen existed and even radios and telephones were a rarity. Hard to even imagine, isn’t it?

My Paternal Grandparents, Matilda & William McNeal

My grandfather McNeal was a post Civil War baby, born in 1867. He had a well with a hand pump beside the kitchen porch. He bought a little red school house with two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. He paid for it outright, no mortgage. A coal burning potbellied stove sat in the living room and heated the whole house. In the beginning, it had no electricity or plumbing. By the time I came along, he had a sink with running water and electric lights. I don’t remember him having an electric stove. He had an outhouse. Because his eyesight became bad in his elder years, he had a rope from the house to the outhouse. My grandfather and grandmother were both scholars with certifications for teaching, but my grandfather earned the greater portion on his income from painting houses. He had no horse or automobile, so he walked everywhere, in every kind of weather, even bitter winters in Numidia, Pennsylvania. My grandmother did not work outside of home in order to raise their three sons and take care of the household. She, however fought for women’s suffrage and was definitely her own person from all accounts. I never had a chance to meet her. She and my two uncles had all died before I was born. He died when I was just six years old, but I remember him and that little house vividly. I wrote my time travel story, THE VIOLIN, based on these memories and what memories my father shared with me about his years growing up and about his brothers and parents.

The Man in the Cover is my Uncle John McNeal for whom THE VIOLIN was written

THE VIOLIN

Can the heart live inside a violin case? Can a message reach across time?

Genevieve Beaumont is haunted by dreams of a drowning man she is helpless to save. When she buys a violin and discovers news clippings and pictures of its owner who died from downing inside the case, she realizes he is the man in her dreams.

She travels to the little town where he died 90 years before to investigate who he was and how he came to drown that day. Little does she know how her own life will be tangled in the mystery…until she steps through the threshold of time to 1927.

Excerpt:

She heard him take in a slow breath before he spoke to her in a more relaxed, quiet tone. "I beg your pardon, miss, I didn't mean to curse. What's your name?" The younger man’s voice soothed her as he knelt beside the couch where she lay. He wrung out a cloth in the bowl of water beside his knee, folded it, and applied it to Genevieve's brow.

"My name is Genevieve Beaumont. I was just standing at the window and now…I'm here." She lifted a shaky hand to her brow. "My head is pounding."

"You bumped your head when you fainted. Is that a French name?"  He lifted a quizzical brow and smiled.

She lifted her eyes and got a good, close-up look at him then. Her heart almost stopped beating in her chest. She sucked in a deep breath. What was happening to her? How could any of this be possible? The man holding the cool cloth to her head was the man in the pictures she found in the violin case!

She would not have guessed he had auburn hair, or that his eyes were such a vivid, bottle green. He wore a collarless, khaki shirt with the sleeves rolled up and suspenders instead of a belt held up his tan, canvas trousers. Oh, but he was handsome—so much more than his pictures ever allowed. She didn't have time to admire the young man's good looks because her mind swirled round and round with the unfathomable implications of her situation.

Buy Link:   AMAZON

My earliest memories of my maternal grandmother are from the time when she lived in an old Victorian house on a farm. She had a big green coal burning stove that heated the kitchen, which was huge, and their hot water from a tank on the side. The bedrooms upstairs had fancy iron grates in the floors that could be opened or closed to heat the rooms above stairs. I also recall all the chores my grandmother performed cooking on that stove, cleaning, washing clothes and hanging them on the line, ironing with an iron she heated on the stove, and looking after the chickens and the baby chicks. She was busy all day long, yet she enjoyed sewing, quilting with her friends, knitting, and crocheting—and she considered all that fun. She also went to visit her friends on Sundays which was a treat because they traded goods with one another, the same the women on the frontier did. Visiting was a pleasure, a comfort, and a news exchange.

I used much of what my grandmother did in several stories including “A Christmas Visitor” in the new Christmas anthology, SWEET TEXAS CHRISTMAS. My only regret is I didn’t ask my grandparents more. There is so much more I wish I knew.

 SWEET TEXAS CHRISTMAS is an anthology of sweet historical western romances that take place in the state of Texas written by veteran western romance writers: Stacey Coverstone, Sarah J. McNeal, Cheryl Pierson, and Marie Piper.

(my contribution) A Christmas Visitor

Prairie Rose Publications

Releases November 2, 2017

Buy Link:  Sweet Texas Christmas

He left her…Now he’s back…But not for long…

Sterling Thoroughgood was Matilda Barton’s first and only love, but he left her three years ago to seek his fortune in Wyoming. And now he’s come back with a puzzle box as a gift with a secret inside. But as far as Matilda’s concerned, it’s three years too late.

Is love lost forever or does the mysterious puzzle box hold the key to happiness?

Excerpt:

“Don’t you even think about stepping up on this porch, Sterling Alexander Thoroughgood, or I’ll shoot a hole in you big enough for a team of horses to jump through.” The woman wearing a faded blue calico dress aimed the shotgun straight at his heart…and sometimes his liver since she wasn’t holding the shotgun all that steady.

Sterling raised his hands in the air. His bare hands were practically numb from the cold. He glanced up at the slate gray sky. Snow’s comin’. Then he grinned at the woman holding the shotgun. “Merry Christmas to you, too, Matilda.”

She dipped the shotgun for just a moment, but raised it again as if on a second thought. “What do you want here after being gone for three years? Did you break some hearts up in Wyoming? Maybe you have some fathers and brothers gunning for you and you thought you’d come running back here to hide.”

Well, there it was. He’d hurt her when he left and she wasn’t about to let him forget it.

Buy Link:  Sweet Texas Christmas

Sarah J. McNeal is a multi-published author who writes diverse stories filled with heart. She is a retired ER and Critical Care 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 Prairie Rose Publications and its imprints Painted Pony Books, and Fire Star Press and Sundown Press. She welcomes you to her website and social media:

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The Wildings

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Sweethearts of the West

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Here Comes Autumn

It’s chilly and raining here in North Carolina. Autumn is beginning to get a foothold now. There is a tinge of colored leaves on the oaks and maples on my street. The dogwoods seem to be in a hurry to get their autumn foliage out. On the news this morning, I heard the leaves have changed colors in the Smoky Mountains. It you’ve never seen that, it’s a beautiful sight.

I am flooded with memories of road trips to the North Carolina Mountains each autumn with the purpose of buying a pumpkin to carve for Halloween at one of the pumpkin farms. Oh sure, I could have bought a pumpkin at the local Farmer’s Market or even at the grocery store, but then I wouldn’t have had that memorable road trip.

One cannot travel through the mountains without stopping to buy apple cider and honey at one of roadside stands. Naturally, I had to visit every antique store along the way to look for a new whirligig or hand crafted Christmas ornament. Sometimes I had sensory overload looking at all the handcrafted items and quilts.

The trip wouldn’t have been complete without having a hot meal at a family owned restaurant. I loved those trips. Those were the days, my friend. I didn’t know at the time that I would be storing up all those wonderful memories to relive now.   

Memories of Pop on Father's Day

My Dad, James William McNeal

My memories are filled with Pop and his sometimes eccentric ways. He taught me to respect nature and all God's creatures. He kept a bird feeder just outside the kitchen window so we could watch the birds while we ate.

The shelves behind his seat at the kitchen table were filled with slides, his microscope, jars of nails, screws and little instruments he used to make slides, and stacks of books. In fact, there were stacks of books everywhere. Homemade bookcases filled with all kinds of books lined the walls and all the nooks and crannies of the house.

No lampshade was safe from his newspaper clippings that he pinned to them like little bulletin boards everywhere. If someone walked by them or opened a door the clippings would rustle and flap around on the shades.

He liked to fish, shoot pellet guns and even arrows at targets on the potting shed door. I managed to shoot well enough to at least hit the potting house with those arrows, but many times the arrows just flew off into no man's land.  I got good at shooting my B.B. gun (a replica of a Western Peacemaker). We even hung tin cans from strings and swung them to make them harder to hit.

Pop loved the ocean even though we seldom went to the beach when my sister and I were growing up. He was a meteorologist. His favorite job was when he worked for Ocean Weather on a coastguard cutter that went as far north as Greenland. Unfortunately, it seemed every time he left port, some catastrophe would take place. Mom finally had enough of Pop's long absences out at sea and he gave up Ocean Weather to work for the United States Weather Bureau.

After he retired from the US Weather Bureau, Pop accepted an offer to be the weatherman for the local news on TV. What he really loved about this job was making films teaching kids about wildlife. He was pretty good at it. Pop was a conservationist before it was cool. Jacques Cousteau was among his favorite wildlife conservationists.

We played our harmonicas together. He liked to play what he called "Dixie", but it wasn't Dixie at all. It was a tune he made up, but we played it just the same. We also played in our grand repertoire, my favorite, Shenandoah.  

He and I sat on the screened in porch during the hot weather to watch the political conventions while we ate caviar with crackers and drank cold beer. That was my first taste of caviar. It's an acquired taste, but I came to like it. 

He taught me to play chess. I only ever won one game. Pop wasn't the type to let a kid win on purpose. If you won, you really won, so that one game was quite a victory for me.

We traded stuff a lot. Once we traded my Thesaurus for his brass ashtray. I liked it because it had a deer in the bottom of it. Pop sometimes forgot what he traded and tried to reclaim his stuff. Because of his forgetfulness, I made him write and sign a release of that ashtray in trade for the Thesaurus. I still have that note and the ashtray.

I still miss him. I miss fighting with him. I miss laughing with him, I miss bargaining for goods with him, and mostly, I just miss him because I loved him.

To all of you who are fathers, have fathers, have kids that are fathers, or miss your fathers, I wish you a Happy Father's Day.