It's in the 90s in Alexandria. In July 1909 Nancy Lee Tackett wrote her mother (who always fled Alexandria in the summer) the heat was terrific, adding "all three servants" were getting along nicely. I wonder what it was like back in 1926, when Margaret Mitchell began her epic while recovering from a broken ankle. While recuperating from several operations in June 2007, I began Letters to Virginia but it wasn't nearly as hot as it is now. It took each of us three years to complete our books. . . . Have several dates coming up to present my book, in September. The 10th at Cape Charles; the 12th at Accomac; then the 19th and 20th for the Fall for the Book Festival. At Blenheim first, then Dolly Madison Library in McLean. Still hoping for Norfolk, where Jack Tackett lived so many years.

A LIGHT BULB GOES OFF - On the order of getting late smart, I recently realized Letters to Virginia is like Gone With the Wind. Both are the stories of how three families were affected by the Civil War and its aftermath. In GWTW there are the O'Haras, Wilkes' and Hamiltons. In Letters there are the Eaches, Fendalls and Tacketts. Other than the names, the major difference is the latter families are real and the former a figment of Margaret Mitchell's fertile imagination.
Mitchell created a vixen named Scarlett, then imagined over three dozen more characters for her 1000+ page novel but she did not envision a family with brothers on opposite sides of the conflict nor a brother stealing his sister's funds nor the tragic toll of cholera on three families nor one son being disinherited and another becoming an alcoholic. Melanie Hamilton loved her husband, Ashley Wilkes, but he secretly lusted after Scarlett. Jack Tackett lived apart from his wife, due to financial circumstances, but wrote love letters daily to her until four days before he dropped dead in their garden.
There are similarities between the authors, too, but I'll tell you about them later.