Just got a lovely letter from a new buyer of Letters to Virginia who was surprised the book was not just one letter after another. I thought everyone knew that. Guess I'll have to change my presentations a bit to include that.

Barb - I read and skimmed parts of Letters to Virginia on the metro train! Wow, you did a lot more than collect letters. I can't imagine all the work that you put into organizing and reading the letters, and then writing a prologue so your readers will understand what everyday life was like back in the 19th century, and lacing together the letters with comments and explanations. I'm in awe! BRAVO! You sure deserve your awards! Carla

"It's June in January." Damn, I want snow. Nov and Dec were too quiet. Hoping 2012 will bring about some signing dates. Went looking for "Wyoming," the farm where Eliza Fendall went during the occupation of Alexandria, on Sunday. Stopped at Mary Surratt Museum, supposed to be close to it but only a one-room schoolhouse from 1800s, all weathered, was near where the farm was supposed to be, in Clinton, MD. . . . Last night had a great time with some warm and wonderful women from the WNBA. No, they don't play basketball; it's the Women's National Book Assoc, which has been around a lot longer than the NBA's women's team. . . . All for now.

Back from Norfolk, where the historian there gave me a grand tour of the streets Jack Tackett trod over a century ago. His dry goods store has been swallowed up by a huge pillared edifice but Simcoe's house still stands and one of his hotels has been converted to a condominium. Even more interesting: the post office where Jack mailed his love letters to Nancy is now the library where the historian works. The Episcopal and Christ Churches are still there, as well, but the roar of carrier jets and the sight of a battleship permanently moored within the city limits brought home how much has changed since Jack labored to support his family from Norfolk. (This is Simcoe's house today.)

A month has gone by since I penned my last comments. From the 9th to the 14th I was on Virginia's Eastern Shore, where Nancy Lee Fendall spent some time and got her first ride in an automobile, to Cape Charles. She got there by ferry; I drove over and thru the Bay Bridge. I made three presentations there. Watching the sun, then the moon set over the Chesapeake Bay at The Baywood B & B in Cape Charles turned the trip into a delightful overdue vacation.

Next I did two talks for Geo Mason U's Fall for the Book Festival. One was at Blenheim, a farmhouse in Falls Church used as a hospital for Union soldiers. It was my second appearance there and I hope I'm invited back next year.


Yesterday I was the guest of one of the local DAR chapters and the ladies were one of my best audiences. While Letters is about the Civil War, the conditions under which those families lived was not that much different from those experienced by people during the Revolutionary War, 85 years earlier. Neither had indoor plumbing or electricity and horse power was just that.

MUSINGS - A new macadamized road is being laid in front of my condo and I am fascinated by how quickly it is done, allowing cars to zoom over it minutes after it is laid. As I look down from my 12th floor balcony I find myself wondering what it was like to ride a horse along the stream that runs next to the road, in the 1800s. Then I realize there would have been no reason to ride a horse here as there were no houses and certainly no condos. Nothing but bushes and brambles and trees, much like what Ben Fendall encountered as he struggled to lay tracks for the B & O RR thru PA and WV. So once again I marvel at how those in my book survived without any of the conveniences we take for granted today.

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.

Receiving the 2011 J. Michael Miller History Award from the Alexandria Historical Society

Pictured, from left to right, Vola Lawson, Jim Mackay, Barb Winters, Anne Paul

Barb's Banter

My son has been bugging me to bring my blog up-to-date so I'd better do so. In April I had a delightful time with the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC). They were very attentive during my presentation, laughed at the right times and bought quite a few books. They also got the autograph of Rita Holtz, a member and the one to whom my book is dedicated. . . Next up was a talk at a retirement home which registered zero in the book sales department. . . Then came the hilite of the month - the Alexandria Historical Society Michael Miller History Award for 2011. With it came a framed declaration of a lot of Whereases, signed by the mayor, and a beautiful round, fluted 13" silver tray engraved with my name. . . I have another presentation next week and Alexandria is going to start their sesquicentennial commemoration on May 21st, at which time I shall be back at UDC. Then I'm planning to branch out to libraries thruout VA to acquaint others with Letters to Virginia and to learn more history about my adopted state.

More from readers: Diane, an author, wrote "I loved your book. It reads like a novel with characters who engage us because we virtually hear their voices - the 'drummer' Jack, as wrongheaded as he is vulnerable, the flighty young Nancy etc. Your narration sets exactly the right tone, not so much the cold all-seeing narrator as the sympathetic listener, writing from the vantage point of the future, setting the historic scene and then, with a touch of suspense and even humor, stepping back." . . .Rita prefers to savor the book. "I'm about half way through your book - into the Fendalls. I cannot read this book fast - I'm afraid I will miss something. It is sooooo interesting." . . . Dawn likes the way "you fill in the information about the battles that Towny writes about." . . . Converse found "Following the lives of three prominent families during the turbulent years of the 1800s was a compelling and enjoyable read."

reviews

Elly, from San Francisco, says: "It is real class. The content is fascinating history and easy to read while being so erudite." René of Arizona, adds: "I think your book is most unusual, very interesting and quite understandable." Ellen, in Alexandria, wrote: "The primary source material is so wonderful and you have done such a great job putting it into context."

Voices from the Past - article from the Alexandria Gazette

Voices from the Past

Uncovering three generations of Alexandria families, one letter at a time.

By Michael Lee Pope

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

When she was confronted with six boxes of old letters, author Barb Winters knew she had a good story. She could smell it. There, in the handwritten script from three generations of Alexandria families was every bit of drama a storyteller could hope to craft — love, larceny, triumph and tragedy. Now that story is finally available in her new book, "Letters to Virginia," published by Acclaim press and available for $24.95.

"I feel like I know these people," said Winters after the official book launch last weekend at the Burke Library. "I certainly spent enough time with them."

It all began in 2000, when a descendant of the family arrived at the Local History Special Collections Department of the Barrett Library with boxes and boxes of handwritten letters. Winters was a library assistant at the time, and she volunteered to sort the letters and see what was there — essentially an effort to see if these letters were worth keeping. The conclusion, it didn’t take long to figure out, was that these old letters were not only worth keeping, there was something special here. She spent the next three years sifting through the letters and writing her book.

"I often think of the inspiration of true love, writing as I do a love letter about every day," Jack Tackett writes to his wife in 1902. "I fear some times that the material will exhaust but no, each day brings some thought that is new and the stream goes on just as the mountain torrent and yet changing its ripples with the passing days."

The letters read like an epic story of love and loss, devotion and betrayal. In the Victorian prose of the era, the generations struggle through hopes and fears, revealing an Alexandria long forgotten by the modern mind. There’s the heart-rending letter describing the death of Carrie Eaches, written by a grieving husband. There’s the plodding sense of determination family members adopted during the Union occupation. There’s even a carefully orchestrated swindle in which Will Fendall systematically stole his sister’s savings and inheritance.

"As usual that scoundrel has presented a pack of lies," Ben Fendall writes to his sister in 1921 about their brother’s scheme. "When you get down to real facts, your money has been taken from you by a trick."The pages of "Letters to Virginia" include descriptions of a prisoner of war camp and describe the construction of a railroad. Some are steamy romantic letters while other outline the course of war and disease.

Winters concludes the book with an observation that modern people no longer collect correspondence in a way that would make a project like this possible for future generations, allowing the story of the past to be told in a series gripping first-person accounts."Our inventions and gadgets wear out before we do," she writes at the end of the book, "and instead of passing on our history, thoughts, and feelings — as these families did — we pass on pollution and landfills."

***********

The article appears here.

How to order a copy of Letters to Virginia

To obtain a personalized copy of "Letters to Virginia," send a check for $30 (which covers shipping, too) to Barb Winters at 5300 Holmes Run Pkwy, #1207, Alexandria, VA, 22304.

Please indicate if you would like the author to sign, and to whom you would like it addressed.

Alexandria Times article about "Letters to Virginia"

Local librarian offers city's past through the eyes of those who lived it

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10 2010 By Derrick Perkins

Local author Barb Winters first got to know the Eaches, Fendalls and Tacketts sorting through boxes of letters for the Alexandria Library’s special collections department almost a decade ago.

Donated by a distant relative of the families,' now living in Massachusetts, the manuscripts document the lives of three generations of prominent Alexandrians, before, during and after the Civil War. Preparing the letters for the city’s archives off and on for the next several years, Winters discovered she had a story in her hands.

“I decided to see if I could write it,” Winters said. “These are all true stories, not made up for publication. They didn’t write for publication, they were letting it all hang out.”

After three years of writing and editing, Winters will unveil her newly published book “Letters to Virginia: Correspondence from Three Generations of Alexandrians Before, During and After the Civil War” for a signing at the Ellen Coolidge Burke Branch Library, December 18. . . .

********** For full article, click here.

Signing by the author, December 18th, 1-3 pm, Burke Branch Library

Barb Winters will have copies of the book available at a presentation she will make from 1-3 pm at the Burke Branch of the Alexandria Library, 4701 Seminary Road, Alexandria, VA. 

Click here for directions.  Here is their website.

If you have questions, please e-mail me at barbwinters@comcast.net

Letters to Virginia -- Correspondence from three generations of Alexandrians before, during and after the Civil War