Little Rose Girl

The stories acquired from researching family genealogy haven taken on deep meaning during the last three decades. This is a story of one little girl, who grew into a woman and became a grandmother with wisdom and gray hair. It is a story of survival and determination. This is a story about a woman and her family, and so many kinds of love. In 1921, a baby girl was born in simple and humble circumstances. Blanche Rose was a woman, who really did live. Her mother really did lose her life in childbirth, decades before the terms NICU, airlift and lifesaving IV drugs were a common part of our vocabulary. Her younger, premature infant sister, Melba, really was kept warm by making her a tiny bed in a shoebox, and keeping her as close to the wood-burning stove as possible. The historical events that surrounded their lives and affected them, in very specific ways, are too numerous to be able to tell them all in this story. Little Rose Girl will transport you back to a very different time in America, and you will share one woman's journey through the depression, WWII, the economic boom of the fifties and sixties, a nation divided during the Viet Nam War to, ultimately, the close of her life, and the magnificent peace and joy she found waiting at the end of her earthly journey. Every family has a story, and in this attempt to understand one period of history and a family that lived through it, you may find yourself thinking about the people who are a part of your DNA. With each generation, the stories and the memories begin to fade, which emphasizes the importance of documenting them. Telling the stories to your children and grandchildren will allow the great strength, that is somewhere in your line of ancestors, to be assimilated into your vision of yourself. Paperback, 2011, Illus., 70 pp.