Inspiration
WHAT INSPIRED ME TO WRITE Clara in a Time of War?
As a newspaper reporter, I always loved writing a story that involved some aspect of history, and I wrote many of them.
One such story was about the efforts to preserve the ruins of an old colonial homestead in Delaware County. The property had once been occupied by Polly and Persifor Frazer, who farmed there while raising a family. When the Revolutionary War broke out, Persifor took a commission as an officer in the Continental Army and went off to fight under General Anthony Wayne. Polly of course stayed home with the children.
The story goes that British foragers arrived at the farm soon after the Battle of the Brandywine and looted the premises while Polly bravely tried to face them down. Persifor had by this time been captured by the British and was being held prisoner. He would later escape to fight another day while the determined Polly also went on to do her part for the war effort.
What struck me most about this story was the idea of a woman struggling to survive in the middle of nowhere during an ever-encroaching war. Soon, I found myself writing about a farm wife named Clara Fletcher who was living in the woods during the American Revolution while her husband was off in the fight, and Clara in a Time of War was born.
MORE INSPIRATION…
I’ve been a volunteer at the ancestral home of Revolutionary War General Anthony Wayne for almost ten years, and my work there inspired me in many ways as I wrote and revised later versions of Clara in a Time of War.
Seven generations of the Wayne family lived in the 18th-century manor home over a span of 240 years, and the place has much to tell about the fabric of life during their long residence. It’s been a thrill to walk on the same floorboards the Waynes walked on, to watch the pendulum sway in their case clock, to read their letters and diaries, to discover how they lived and what they thought. Real live history before my eyes!
You can find out more about Historic Waynesborough HERE. HISTORIC WAYNESBOROUGH| philalandmarks.
To read my blogs about HW that have appeared on the website of The Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks, please go to BLOG:
AND STILL MORE…
A Word about the House across the Street
The past was all around us in the small town outside of Philadelphia where I grew up, and I saw much of it daily. This included the big 19th-century farmhouse across the street from where I lived.
The house sat back off the street behind a row of spindly hedges, three stories high, with a wraparound porch and weathered siding. It was by far the oldest home in the neighborhood and the most mysterious. Who lived there, we wondered, never seeing anyone around the place. And why was there never a light in a window?
There were stories, of course. A witch lived there, or a ghost. Or the place had been abandoned due to some past tragedy there. It was easy to believe any of those things to be true, just as it was easy for a young daydreamer like myself to imagine a woman in a long dress with her hair in a bun sweeping the porch or peering out from behind a lace curtain, back when Grover Cleveland was president.
I can’t say it was the big farmhouse alone that gave me a lifelong appreciation for history. But it certainly opened my eyes to the fact that the past reaches into the present, and that it has many stories to tell.
I hope my novel, Clara in a Time of War, will bring a portion of that past to life for you in a story that makes you want to know more.
C.J.’s Blogs about Historic Waynesborough
Scratching an Itch at Historic Waynesborough (philalandmarks.org)
The Spoils of War (philalandmarks.org)
General Anthony Wayne: In Other Words (philalandmarks.org)
Bet You Didn’t Know This About Women (philalandmarks.org)
The Present Day Pleasures of Gardening in Perforated Clogs (philalandmarks.org)