As I continue to research my new book, I am re-visiting my own family history.  I often use my father’s family tree for inspiration in my writing, but this time I’m reaching into my mother’s lineage.  This picture is of my great-grandparents, great-aunt, and my beloved late grandmother (she’s the toddler on the right).  My great-grandmother, Hettie Elizabeth, looks happy in her role as a young wife and mother, but I know that times were tough.  Little did she know that just a few years after this photo was taken, she would be in a TB hospital, separated from her husband and two little girls.  She died at just 26 years of age, leaving Jarvis Jackson Cromer a widower at the age of 29.  Yes, believe it or not, my great-grandfather was only in his mid-twenties in this picture!  I love his body language, though—–kind of like “Don’t mess with me…ever.”  What I’m learning about the people of Appalachia, though, is that they were (and are) inherently strong and proud people.  They were fighters.  They worked hard and loved harder and never forgot those who departed earlier than they should have.  As my grandmother was facing her own mortality, she picked up a pen and began writing her history.  She remembered every moment of the day she learned her mother had died in that TB hospital.  Seventy years later, the pain of that day lived strong within her.  When I miss her so much that it hurts, I pull out her memories.  I hope that they continue to inspire me.