JUNE 2022 BOOK DAY

School’s Out For Summer

Put Your Feet Up With One of These Reads

 

THE DAMSEL’S INTENT

The Quilting Circle (Book 3)

A Sweet Historical Romance Series

By Mary Davis

Can Nicole learn to be enough of a lady to snag the handsome rancher? Nicole Waterby heads down the mountain to fetch herself a husband, not realizing women don’t wear trousers or carry a gun. She has a lot to learn. Rancher Shane Keegan has drifted from one location to another to find a place to belong. When Nicole crosses his path, he wonders if he can have love, but he soon realizes she’s destined for someone better than a saddle tramp. Will love stand a chance while both Nicole and Shane try to be people they’re not?

 

 

BRIDE BY BLACKMAIL

By Debbie Lynne Costello

A broken heart, controlling father, and intrusive Scot leave Charlotte reeling. Accused of stealing an heirloom pin, she must choose between an unwanted marriage and the ruin of her family name. With her and her sister’s futures at stake, Charlotte must navigate through injustice to find forgiveness and true happiness. Eager to find the traitor who caused the death of his brother, Duncan comes to America attempting to fit into Charleston society. But when the headstrong Charlotte catches his eye, Duncan acquires a second mission—winning the lass's hand. After several spurnings, he uses unconventional ways of winning her heart.

 

 

TITANIC: LEGACY OF BETRAYAL

A Time-Slip Novel

By Kathleen E. Kovach, et al.

A secret. A key. Much was buried on the Titanic, but now it's time for resurrection. Follow two intertwining stories a century apart. 1912 - Matriarch Olive Stanford protects a secret after boarding the Titanic that must go to her grave. 2012 - Portland real estate agent Ember Keaton-Jones receives the key that will unlock the mystery of her past... and her distrusting heart. Review: “I told my wife to move this book to the top of her reading list... This titanic story is more interesting than the one told in the Titanic movie... She will absolutely love it.”

 

HUNT FOR A HOMETOWN KILLER

By Mary Dodge Allen

2022 Christian Indie Award winner, First Place – Mystery Suspense

While Roxy Silva is working her hometown mail route, a sinkhole opens up and drains a retention pond, uncovering the car used in her husband’s murder. Determined to solve the cold case, Roxy turns amateur sleuth, using her amazing photographic memory. Her relationship with handsome detective Kyle grows closer as they uncover shocking secrets. When the killer takes Roxy captive, she must use her wits to survive. “Suspense, humor, rapier wit, and a heaping helping of warmth and unexpected plot twists. We loved it!” Pages & Paws – 5-Star Book Review

 

 

END OF THE TRAIL

By Vickie McDonough

Brooks Morgan’s weapon of choice is his smile. He’s smart, witty, and has charmed his way through life, but now that he’s growing older—and a bit wiser—and he’s ready to settle down. He gets his chance when he wins Raven Creek Ranch in a poker game, but when he goes to claim his prize, a pretty woman with a shotgun says the ranch belongs to her. Brooks isn’t leaving his one chance to make something of his life—but neither is she. Can they reach an agreement? Or will a greedy neighbor force a showdown, causing them both to lose they want most in life?

 

 

THIMBLES AND THREAD

By Suzanne Norquist, et al

4 Love Stories Are Quilted Into Broken Lives

“Mending Sarah’s Heart” By Suzanne Norquist

Rockledge, Colorado, 1884

Sarah doesn’t need anyone, especially her dead husband’s partner. With four brothers to mentor her boys and income as a seamstress, she seeks a quiet life. If only the Emporium of Fashion would stop stealing her customers and the local hoodlums would leave her sons alone. When she rejects her husband’s share of the mine, his partner Jack seeks to serve her through other means. But will his efforts only push her further away?

 

“Bygones” by Mary Davis

Texas, 1884

Drawn to the new orphan boy in town, Tilly Rockford soon became the unfortunate victim of a lot of Orion Dunbar’s mischievous deeds in school. Can Tilly figure out how to truly forgive the one who made her childhood unbearable? Now she doesn’t even know she holds his heart. Can this deviant orphan-train boy turned man make up for the misdeeds of his youth and win Tilly’s heart before another man steals her away?

 

 

COUNT THE NIGHTS BY STARS

By Michelle Shocklee

After a longtime resident at Nashville’s historic Maxwell House Hotel suffers a debilitating stroke, Audrey is tasked with cleaning out the reclusive woman’s room. She discovers an elaborate scrapbook filled with memorabilia from the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Love notes on the backs of unmailed postcards capture Audrey’s imagination with hints of a forbidden romance . . . and troubling revelations about the disappearance of young women at the exposition. Audrey enlists the help of a handsome hotel guest as she tracks down clues and information about the mysterious “Peaches” and her regrets over one fateful day, nearly sixty-five years earlier.

 

 

THE WIDOW & THE WAR CORRESPONDENT

By Linda Shenton Matchett

Are a new life and new love possible in a country devastated by war? Barely married before she’s widowed, journalist Cora Strealer travels to England where she’s assigned to work with United Press’s top reporter who thinks the last place for a woman is on the front lines. Will she have to choose her job over her heart? A sought-after journalist, Van Toppel deserves his pick of assignments, so why did the bureau chief saddle him with a cub reporter. The beautiful rookie is no puff piece. Can he get her off his beat without making headlines…or losing his heart?

 

 

THE CRYPTOGRAPHER’S DILEMMA

By Johnnie Alexander

A Cryptographer Uncovers a Japanese Spy Ring

FBI cryptographer Eloise Marshall is grieving the death of her brother, who died during the attack on Pearl Harbor, when she is assigned to investigate a seemingly innocent letter about dolls. Agent Phillip Clayton is ready to enlist and head oversees when asked to work one more FBI job. A case of coded defense coordinates related to dolls should be easy, but not so when the Japanese Consulate gets involved, hearts get entangled, and Phillip goes missing. Can Eloise risk loving and losing again?

How Tall is Your Historical Fiction Hero?

In fiction, we often read about the height and brawn of a hero. The heroine (most often much more diminutive) gazes far up into his oceanic eyes and places a fingertip to his cleft chin right before he sweeps her into his arms. Rarely, except when we're watching an old Mickey Rooney movie, is the hero what we'd term today as "short".

Some years back, while researching and writing a WWI novel, I got to wondering about just how tall people were throughout history. Have you ever gone to a museum where there are old army uniforms on display from way back, and the size seems a bit smaller than would fit the average soldier today? And even those women's Red Cross or army nurse's uniforms were exceedingly trim? 

This made sense when I came upon some old army enlistment records, and noticed that most of the men were only in the mid five-foot range. A small handful made it to 5'10", and hardly any but a few hit 6'. I'd also noticed that among people I knew  today, most sons or daughters were taller than their parents, while the parents were likely taller than their own parents too.

  

As it turns out, I wasn't imagining it. Height has changed over the past century or so.

Of course, in a novel, a heroine peering up at her hero may consider him very tall for his time, and extremely muscular. But by today's standards, most of them weren't. In fact, research tells us that the average height of most men during WWI was only 5'6" (my hubby's height). I would imagine women were shorter by average still. I remember my grandpa being called tall, but by the time he grew old and his bones compressed more, I was taller than he was. I think at his tallest he might have been 5'9" or 5'10" first thing in the morning. My other grandfather was tall at 6', and my dad is also 6'. At least one of my dad's brothers was taller by an inch or two. But I've noted for a long time that sons generally tend to be taller than their fathers, and I thought that this seems to go back a few generations. 

My 5'6" hero and our 6'1"-6'2" sons about 2010.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, height has increased an average of 4 inches world-wide. As scientists proceeded to study this phenomenon, the natural conclusion came down to improvements in diet (mostly) and health care (to some extent). There were other factors too. Genetics, of course, do play a role, and recently, scientists discovered that our brains have a receptor that tells the body when to grow more or when to get those puberty hormones kicking in. If there are any genetic mutations that affect that receptor, it too can cause a person to be shorter or smaller in body. Sometimes the size of a family can play a moderate role too, larger families having reaching shorter heights--but this can possibly come back to nutrition too, and that might depend on where and how you grew up. So many factors.

So in the interest of curiosity and that desire for accuracy even in fiction, this really only has one effect. That's to know that my tall, broad-shouldered hero is only tall and broad-shouldered in sense relative to the time. He may be a six-foot anomaly, but probably my heroine is only about five-foot-nothin', and when she gazes up into the tranquil brown eyes of Captain Wonderful, he's probably a striking 5'5"-5'7". Just sayin.

Here's some fun. Time.com created a calculator for what your height might have been if you'd been born a hundred years earlier than you were. I'm 5'7", and the estimator tells me I would likely have been 2.1 inches shorter if I'd been born in 1861 instead of 1961, so just under 5'5". 

I'd fit right in in Latvia, the country with the tallest women now, with my height being the average. And if you want to write about a really tall hero, make him Dutch, because according to Time's research, they're the tallest men.

While I find this all very interesting, a recent discussion here at home centered on whether or not this is changing again, and if our youngest generations might actually be getting a little bit shorter. My son noted that, while many of his friends are tall, in the six-foot range like he is, he's noticed a lot of shorter guys that are ten-fifteen years younger than he is. Is it just coincidence? No! Turns out that observation has some basis in fact too! Recent studies also show that the trend in height is reversing. We wondered whether it's had to do with the way people consume modified foods, power drinks, and so on. Why do you think height might be changing? Is it purely from some genetic change? Let me know what you think.

Interesting research about the reasons we've gotten taller:
https://theconversation.com/why-did-humans-grow-four-inches-in-100-years-it-wasnt-just-diet-25919
About that recently discovered brain sensor:
https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/science-health/954710/breakthrough-reveals-humans-getting-taller

In my brand new Heroines of WWII release Season of My Enemy, the hero is probably about 5'7" and my heroine Fannie about 5'5". Sound about right? I think so.

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Christian Book

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History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency By Donna Schlachter -- with Giveaway

Allan Pinkerton. Courtesy Wikipedia

Allan Pinkerton, who founded the agency in the 1850s, came to the United States from Scotland, settling in Chicago. After meeting an attorney, the two decided to set up the North-Western Police Agency to address increased crime in the area and the nation. Originally, investigations were limited to policing employees for business owners to deter theft and embezzlement, but within five years, Allan Pinkerton created his own agency to specifically investigate railroad crimes.

Abraham Lincoln. Courtesy Wikipedia

One of the company’s earliest assignments was to safely deliver President Abraham Lincoln to Washington DC following an assassination threat. 

 

It was for this case that the first Pink Lady, Kate Warne, was assigned. She successfully delivered the president through a series of disguises and elaborate ruses, including duplicate trains and carriages. In fact, the case was important and difficult enough to require her to stay awake through the entire long journey. Thus began the company’s logo of an open eye and the slogan, “We never sleep.” 

Kate Warne. Courtesy Wikipedia

After the Civil War, the Pinkertons were hired by business owners to keep unions from organizing at their companies. The agency used a variety of operations, including infiltrating unions to gain information; supply guards to employers to keep organizers off the premises and to protect against property damage; bar strikers from properties; and recruiting goon squads to intimidate workers.
 

In 1871, the US government funded the Department of Justice to detect and prosecute anybody violating federal law. However, the fifty thousand dollars appropriated to fund the department wasn’t enough to form an internal investigation unit, so the Pinkerton National Detective Agency received a sub-contract to perform those duties.

Homestead, PA. Courtesy Wikipedia

In the 1870s, a Pinkerton operative, working undercover as James McKenna, infiltrated the Molly Maguires, a 19th-century secret society of Irish-Americans. He was so successful that the labor organization collapsed.

 

 

Frank & Jesse James. Courtesy Wikipedia

The agency was hired to track western outlaws Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and others. A number of notorious criminals were captured with the agency’s assistance. Pinkerton agents were well-armed, so they were often hired to transport money and other high-quality merchandise.  

 

While in the early years, the company enjoyed support from the public, their activities in strikebreaking earned them the reputation as being involved in violent crackdowns on striking workers, most notably, the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.

 

In 1892, the agency was hired to protect Carnegie Steel, owned by Andrew
Carnegie. During this strike, fights broke out between workers and strikebreakers. Three hundred Pinkerton agents were called in to protect the steel mill and strikebreakers. The governor mobilized state law enforcement and the National Guard. Private and government forces broke the strike, and the workers went back to work. When the air cleared, sixteen men lay dead. A large public outcry against their tactics decried the violence and treatment of strikers.

In fact, the Anti-Pinkerton Act of 1893 specifically says that no individual employed by that agency could work for or contract for the federal government

In the late nineteenth century, the Pinkertons were hired as guards for various natural resource companies, including coal, iron, and lumber, and acted in various disputes in Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

I used Kate Warne as the basis for the heroine in my story, Kate. As a young widow in the 1850s, Kate marched into the Pinkerton office and said she wanted a job. Allan Pinkerton thought she meant a clerical job, but no. Kate wanted to be a detective. And she turned out to be one of his best “men”, paving the way for many more female detectives in the coming years.

Kate Warne was a feisty woman with definite ideas of how she wanted her life to go, and so is Kate. While Kate Warne never remarried, I wanted my Kate to balance family and a professional career, a relatively new concept in the 1870s.

Today, most career paths are open to men or women, but that wasn’t always the case.

Giveaway: Answer this question to be entered into a random drawing for an ebook copy of A Pink Lady Thanksgiving – had you ever thought to enter a career or accept a job that would normally have gone to someone of the opposite gender? 

 

I’ll go first. I once wanted to be a veterinarian in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A teacher told me they didn’t want women officers, and I believed him. I “settled” for a career in accounting.

Please leave your comment along with your email address disguised like this: donna AT livebytheword DOT com

About Donna:
A hybrid author, Donna writes squeaky clean historical and contemporary suspense. She has been published more than 50 times in books; is a member of several writers groups; facilitates a critique group; teaches writing classes; ghostwrites; edits; and judges in writing contests. She loves history and research, traveling extensively for both.

www.DonnaSchlachter.com Stay connected so you learn about new releases, preorders, and presales, as well as check out featured authors, book reviews, and a little corner of peace. Plus: Receive a free ebook simply for signing up for our free newsletter!

www.DonnaSchlachter.com/blog



 

Resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_(detective_agency)

The Temple That Herod Built

Dana McNeely

Herod the Great was known as a ruthless king who eliminated any threat to his power. The Bible records his slaughter of all male children under the age of two after the three Magi visited the Christ child and returned to their country by another route. In my post of May 27th, I wrote how he executed members of his family, even his beloved wife Mariamne. 

The Builder

But Herod was also known for magnificent building projects such as the Greco-Roman city of Sebastos, several fortified palaces (including Masada), and the sea-side city, palace, and artificial harbor at Caesarea Maritima. His most famous project was his rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, a project which faced serious opposition from the Jews.

Reconstruction of the Temple of Herod - Painting in Brooklyn Museum by James Tissot

Building a Legacy

Because of his many atrocities during his reign, Jews feared Herod would defile the temple by entering the holy places. They also worried he would raze the old temple and never rebuild it, leaving them without a temple at all. At this point wanting to both appease the Jews and improve his legacy, he took measures to reassure them on both counts. He trained over a thousand priests in building techniques so they could work in the holy places. And he assembled all necessary building materials and workers before starting the project.

A potentially confusing fact is that both Herod's temple and the temple it replaced, which was built after the Jews returned from exile, are known as the second temple. This is because the old temple was still standing when Herod began renovations, as opposed to Solomon's temple, which was merely rubble. But more than replacing the temple itself, Herod massively expanded the platform on which the temple stood.

Temple at center, Royal Stoa and Hulda Gates at left via WikimediaCommons

Innovative Engineering

Because the larger facility would not fit atop Mount Moriah's existing platform, Herod needed to adapt to the north-south slope of the bedrock. To accommodate a much larger, level platform, Herod did two things. At the top end where the bedrock was higher, he leveled it off. At the south end, he built a series of underground arches, or vaults, and enclosed the entire support structure within a wall.

Jerusalem Temple Underground Supports (AKA Solomon's Stables) via WikimediaCommons

These underground arches still support the south side of the structure. They are now called Solomon’s Stables, although they had nothing to do with Solomon, who built the first temple. The name came from the crusaders. The Knights Templars used this area for stabling their horses. Knowing the first temple was in this area, they christened the area Solomon’s Stables.

Jesus and the Moneychangers

Running around north, east, and west sides of the platform, Herod built beautiful porches with soaring columns and tiled roofs. During religious holidays and feasts, thousands of pilgrims sheltered there from the sun and rain. On the south side, he built a two-story structure called the royal stoa, a giant building similar to a basilica but open on one side, used for public meetings or business. Some historians consider this the likely location where Jesus removed the moneychangers, because they were overcharging poor devout Jews.

The Holyland Model of Jerusalem showing the Royal Stoa - via WikimediaCommons

The two Huldah gates, which would be at the bottom left of the image above, led from the city below and served as entrance and exit to the temple proper, which was situated in the center of the massive platform. Each gate had two massive doors and a set of steps. The right narrower set of steps led to an underground passageway decorated with carved stone and stucco that under the Royal Stoa and up into the temple mount. When emerging onto the platform, one would face the temple building in the middle of this open, paved platform. another double gate, covered with gold, that opened into the temple building itself.

By Ariely - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org

Although no archeological remains exist of the temple building itself, the Holyland Model depicts a guess of what it might have looked like based on comparisons with earlier temples and historical descriptions. In front would the altar for animal sacrifices. In front of that was the open "Court of Women" which both men and women could enter. This all would be surrounded by a fortification wall. This was as far as women could go, as they could not enter where sacrifices were offered. Note the high fortification wall surrounding the temple buildings in the model.

Although there are no remains of the actual temple building, there are remains of something connected with it.

Keep Out! Under Penalty of Death

A low wall or fence surrounded the high fortification wall. A part of this fence survived, including two inscriptions on the fence prohibiting Non-Jews from entering the temple itself, although they could go onto the platform and into the public areas such as the Stoa or Basilica. The inscription reads:

"No man of another nation is to enter within the fence and enclosure around the temple. And whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his death which will follow."

The historian Josephus writes about this low stone wall and its inscriptions.

"Proceeding across this [the open court] toward the second court of the temple, one found it surrounded by a stone balustrade, three cubits high and of exquisite workmanship; in this at regular intervals stood slabs giving warning, some in Greek, others in Latin characters, of the law of purification, to wit that no foreigner was permitted to enter the holy place, for so the second enclosure of the temple was called."

Paul's Arrest 

Interestingly, the inscribed warning appears connected to Paul's arrest, recorded in Acts 21, when Paul was accused of bringing a Greek into this temple area. The Jews were aroused by this seeming sacrilege and tried to kill Paul, but the Romans intervened and took him to Caesarea, another of Herod's building projects.

Further Resources

A picture is worth a thousand blogs, so I want to include the following videos to expand upon my descriptions.

A fascinating YouTube video produced by The City of David Institute for Jerusalem Studies relates history while showing animated 3-D videos.

The Temple - Herod's Crowning Glory

A well-done video by Bible History Online.

Herod's Temple - Interesting Facts 

The Great Courses: Holy Land Revealed, Professor Jodi Magness, Ph.D.

RAIN ~ Whispers in the Wind Book 1

Aban yearns to join the priesthood of Ba'al, unlock the power of the rain god, and hear the deity's voice. But first, he must survive a perilous initiation ceremony.

When the mysterious prophet Elijah interrupts the rites, overturns the idol, and curses the land with drought, Aban must choose a side in Yahweh's war against the Ba'als - and it may cost him his life.

Book 2, WHIRLWIND, December 2022.

Dana McNeely dreamed of living in a world teeming with adventure, danger and romance, but she had a problem - she also needed a lot of peace and quiet. She learned to visit that dream world by stepping into a book.

Inspired by the Bible stories of Elijah, Dana wondered about the widow of Zarephath and her son. Who were they? What was their life, before? How did the boy change after he died, saw the other world—and came back?

Those questions led to Dana writing RAIN, in which she built her dream world of adventure, danger, and romance. Peace and quiet, however, have remained elusive.

No stranger to drought, Dana lives in an Arizona oasis with her hubby the constant gardener, two good dogs, an antisocial cat, and migrating butterflies.

Learn more about Dana and her books at her website: DanaMcNeely.com

Newsletter subscribers receive a free book: https://bit.ly/danasnews

What Would You Do With Fifty-Seven Cents?

 

by Cindy Regnier

Hattie May Wiatt

Before I start, I must confess I had never heard of Hattie May Wiatt until a few months back when I read about her amazing story on an author friend’s blog. If you’ve never heard this story, read on. It’s truly memorable and just as relevant today.

Hattie, a child of about 6-years-old was growing up in a poor family in Philadelphia during the 1880s. Hattie lived near a Baptist Church pastored by Russell Conwell. The church was small and very crowded. Despite the overcrowding, Hattie loved Sunday School. Unfortunately, there were many times not all of the children who came to Sunday School could fit inside. Many Sunday mornings, Hattie and other children were left standing outside the building.

Russell Conwell

 On one such Sunday morning, Pastor Conwell spotted Hattie standing outside, the disappointment plain on her face. He told her it was his hope that one day the church would have enough funds to build a bigger building so that all the children who wanted to attend could come to Sunday School. At that moment Hattie resolved to help in whatever way she could.

Sadly, Hattie died of diphtheria at the age of seven. Her younger sister died of the same dreaded disease five days later. Under Hattie’s pillow, the distraught mother of the Wiatt girls found a little torn pocketbook with fifty-seven cents inside. The coins were wrapped in a scrap of paper where she had written, “To help build the little Temple bigger, so that more children can go to Sunday school.”

Fifty-seven cents was no small savings for 1886, but Hattie’s mother decided not to keep the money. Instead, she took it to Pastor Conwell when he presided at Hattie's funeral. Rev. Conwell told the story of Hattie's coins at a subsequent church service, announcing it as the first gift towards the new Sunday School building.

Pastor Conwell converted the fifty-seven cents to pennies and offered the pennies for sale netting a total of $250! This was a huge sum back then, but Hattie’s generosity had inspired others. Reportedly, fifty-four or the original fifty-seven pennies were returned to Pastor Conwell, which he then put on display as even more inspiration. The $250 was also changed into pennies and resold which provided the resources for the original funding of what became known as the ‘Wiatt Mite Society’. In this way, Hattie’s 57 cents kept on multiplying. The local papers published her story far and wide, and within five years the fifty-seven pennies had multiplied to be $250,000.

Eventually, the congregation not only built a bigger Sunday School but an entire new church. The Wiatt Mite Society managed to raise the money against all odds and the church was built right on Broad Street. The owner of the lot purchased for the new church accepted Hattie's pennies as the first down payment on the property, and though it was officially called Grace Baptist Church, this new church also became known as The Temple. It was out of this church that Temple University grew as well. Conwell often told the story of how this congregation of thousands was born out of Hattie May's small investment. He said "she is happy on high with the thought that her life was so full, that it was so complete, that she lived really to be so old in the influences she threw upon this earth."

Church built from $.57

 

Today in Philadelphia, the Baptist Temple Church seats 3,300, the Temple College accommodates more than 1,400 students, and the church owns the Temple Hospital. If you were a 7-year-old with 57 cents, what would you do with it? I’d have spent it all on paper dolls or candy, none of which would have been around for very long or did anyone any good. Let Hattie May be an inspiration to you! 

Scribbling in notebooks has been a habit of Cindy Regnier since she was old enough to hold a pencil. Born and raised in Kansas, she writes stories of historical Kansas, especially the Flint Hills area. Cindy is married to her husband of 39 years, has two grown sons, a son residing in heaven, and two beautiful daughters-in-law.

The Castillo de San Marcos--Part 7

by Jennifer Uhlarik

 

Hello, readers! Are you ready for more interesting history about the oldest masonry fort on U.S. soil? If you’ve been following along, you’ve learned all about the fort’s founding and how it was passed between Spain, Britain, Spain again, the United States, and even fell to the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. Last month, I told you how, for a period of three years during the 1870s, the fort became home to seventy-three Plains Indians. And this month, I’ll share another interesting chapter of the Castillo’s history—the internment of the Apache Indians.

 

Just as we learned in last month’s post about the Plains Indians, the Native Americans of all tribes were struggling to acclimate to the idea of so many white men flooding into what had been their traditional territories. The Apaches were no different, and conflicts sparked between these groups all across Arizona for decades. Fierce warriors that they were, the Apaches fought hard against the incoming settlers, making homesteading in the Southwest a difficult endeavor. The Frontier Army came in and attempted to subdue the Apaches, placing them on reservation lands, but as so often happened, those promised lands ended up being found to have hidden value in the form of gold, silver, or other resources. Or the government didn’t deliver the promised supplies—cattle and other food supplies, blankets and clothing, etc. So new treaties were negotiated, and new boundaries drawn up, shrinking the sizes of reservations or moving them to new locations all together, all so that white men could capitalize on the resources they’d found on reservation lands—or with more promises of better supplies in the new locales. As anyone would, the Apaches grew tired of this shuffling and broken promises. Bands began breaking out of the reservations to go again on raids and make war on the Army and settlements for these unfair practices, as well as to provide for their families. Ultimately, this war went on for years, but slowly ended as Apache leader after Apache leader finally surrendered when they couldn’t keep going.

Apache Men sitting among cannons housed
at Fort Marion, circa 1886

Similar to the Plains Indians, various Apache men were chosen to be sent to Florida for incarceration at Fort Marion. What was different from the Plains Indians incarceration was that women and children were also sent to the fort. They arrived by train on April 16, 1886. Of course, all of St. Augustine came out to gawk at the new arrivals. The oldest men came first, wrapped in their blankets. Following them came the younger warriors. And lastly, the women and children. While large, the fort could comfortably sleep 150 or so, not the 502 who ended up being sent to Florida for imprisonment. Some of the Apaches were made to sleep in the casemate rooms surrounding the inner courtyard, and many others were sent to the gundeck above to sleep in Sibley tents.

 

As you might imagine, life was difficult in a strange new place, particularly in such tight quarters. The Apaches were given a pound of beef per adult per day, with children receiving half that; fresh bread each day; vegetables and grains like rice, turnips, hominy and beans, as well as a small weekly portion of potatoes and onions. The women were expected to cook the food themselves, except for the bread, which was made down the street at St. Francis Barracks and carted over each morning. They drank coffee with sugar, or they had water from the well within the fort’s walls. 

 

Geronimo, one of the most famous Apache
warriors. While he was not held at Fort Marion,
his wife was, and gave birth to his daughter, Marion
(later renamed Lenna), while there.

There were twelve Apache children born during the year they were incarcerated at Fort Marion, the first of which was Geronimo’s daughter (aptly names “Marion”, although she later changed her name to Lenna). Unfortunately, there were also several deaths in that year. When you stop to consider the sheer number of people in such confined spaces, it isn’t surprising that illness ran rampant among them. Colonel Langdon, who was in charge of overseeing the Apache prisoners, brought in Army physician, Dr. DeWitt Webb, to treat the men, women, and children. Despite his best efforts, Dr. Webb reported that he lost numerous patients to various diseases, such as dysentery, acute bronchitis, marasmus (or wasting disease), old age, epilepsy, tuberculosis, and neonatal tetanus. All told, twenty-four Apaches died during that year in St. Augustine. 

 

In order to make more room during the daylight hours, the Apaches were allowed to spread out outside the fort walls on the grounds and go into town, but even so, there wasn’t much for them to do. Children played games while the adults saw to the needs of their families, cooking, mending clothing, and repairing their few belongings. There wasn’t enough space for much else. The women would weave baskets to sell to locals and tourists, and men and boys would make and sell bows and arrows, as well as offer lessons in how to use the weaponry. However, with the overcrowded conditions, it was harder for the Apaches to make and sell their wares than it had been for the seventy-three Plains Indians a decade before.

 

The prisoners began turning to gambling and card games to pass the time until Colonel Langdon came to the same conclusion that his predecessor, Lt. Richard Henry Pratt, had. They needed stimulation, and it would come through education and assimilation. Colonel Langdon contacted Richard Henry Pratt in Carlisle, PA, to ask him to return to Fort Marion and interview the children to see if any would be a good fit at the Carlisle Indian Residential School, of which Pratt was the founder and headmaster. Upon Pratt’s visit, he selected 103 of the children to return with him to the school, and they young ones were immediately sent on their way under Pratt’s care. At the Carlisle Indians School, they children were given military-style uniforms to wear, their hair was cut short, and they were given Christian names.

Apache children in traditional garb on their arrival at Carlisle Indian School (left).
Many of the same children after receiving haircuts and military-style uniforms (right).

 

Of the roughly four hundred remaining Apaches, Colonel Langdon again called upon St. Augustine’s women to begin educating the Natives. Just as with the Plains Indians, Miss Sarah Mather and other local women set up classes so the Apache adults could learn to read, write, and speak English, as well as some simple arithmetic, science, and other subjects. Those children who were not taken to Carlisle, PA, were taken each weekday to a local nunnery where the Sisters of St. Joseph educated them in similar subject matter. Unlike Lt. Pratt before him, Colonel Langdon did not implement a physical training program or having skilled craftsman teaching the Apaches their crafts—more than likely because there were too many prisoners and not enough space for such education.

 

After roughly one year, those Apaches left in St. Augustine were moved again, this time to a reservation in Alabama, and later to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, where they remained.

 

Award-winning, best-selling novelist Jennifer Uhlarik has loved the western genre since she read her first Louis L’Amour novel. She penned her first western while earning a writing degree from University of Tampa. Jennifer lives near Tampa with her husband, son, and furbabies. www.jenniferuhlarik.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

AVAILABLE NOW!

 

Love's Fortress by Jennifer Uhlarik

 

A Friendship From the Past Brings Closure to Dani’s Fractured Family

 

When Dani Sango’s art forger father passes away, Dani inherits his home. There, she finds a book of Native American drawings, which leads her to seek museum curator Brad Osgood’s help to decipher the ledger art. Why would her father have this book? Is it another forgery?

 

Brad Osgood longs to provide his four-year-old niece, Brynn, the safe home she desperately deserves. The last thing he needs is more drama, especially from a forger’s daughter. But when the two meet “accidentally” at St. Augustine’s 350-year-old Spanish fort, he can’t refuse the intriguing woman.

 

Broken Bow is among seventy-three Plains Indians transported to Florida in 1875 for incarceration at ancient Fort Marion. Sally Jo Harris and Luke Worthing dream of serving on a foreign mission field, but when the Indians reach St. Augustine, God changes their plans. However, when Sally Jo’s friendship with Broken Bow leads to false accusations, it could cost them their lives.

 

Can Dani discover how Broken Bow and Sally Jo’s story ends and how it impacted her father’s life?