Enthusiasm for South on Summit continues to grow with your posts and questions along with additional reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. The response over the past year has fueled my next writing endeavor, a prequel that examines the earlier lives on the Summit along with some new ones. I have decided to keep the format the same using three main characters who tell their overlapping stories of life during the transition from the Gilded age to Industrial America. The novel will be historically accurate and include World War One and the events of 1929. Readers of my newsletter will get some glimpses in advance of the publication release that I hope to accomplish by the end of 2026. In the meantime, I would like to respond to more questions that you have posed since the Spring Newsletter.
Reader Questions About South on Summit
One of the challenges of writing historical fiction is to place characters into a context that represents the values, sentiments, language, and culture of the historical times being presented. This requires a great deal of investment in the research of historical events as well as examination of human responses. My work blends fiction into history with the goal of causing the reader to question which is which. I use historians to check the historical accuracy of my writing and editors to judge the rest. Your questions are natural and rewarding, allowing me to address your curiosity. So keep them coming!
Why did you kill off Butch?
I get this response a lot. I have even heard from readers who admit they shed tears over Butch taking his life at the end of chapter 12. Unfortunately those who experienced the horrors of war have great difficulty putting their trauma behind them. In WW1 it was called “shell shock” and in WW2 the terms “battle fatigue” or “combat stress reaction” were used. Today, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a classified mental illness that requires treatment. But sadly, too often a treated person who appears to have been healed will commit suicide. This continues and as many as 13% of our veteran population suffers from the condition.
I thought that it was important for the reader to feel some sort of loss by first endearing Butch through his funny, engaging and outgoing personality. I wanted you to laugh at his sense of humor when bantering with the cooks, cry with his reaction to little Tony’s death in chapter seven, and smile at his flirtations with the nurses. But I also hoped you would feel Butch’s emotional struggles as he witnessed war, killed enemies, and watched comrades die by his side. I wanted you to embrace Butch and experience the shock of his suicide and sadness that families must endure. I have provided a link to the Gary Sinise Foundation on my website to encourage readers to support critical services that support our veterans: https://www.garysinisefoundation.org/donate
Did Bill and Tuffy really pull the prank by ringing the school bell at night?
No. The real event occurred in the late 1800’s at the Smithville Normal School when some students tied a rope to the bell in the tower and the other end to the leg of a cow across the street. No one was caught. I decided to reinvent the story in chapter eight by using two ornery lads (Bill & Tuffy) and placing their caper at the Public School Building that once stood at the intersection of Main and South Summit.
Did children in One-Room schools really teach each other?
Yes, and there was a real Number Six School that Mary Lou attended. She is the girl in the back row of this picture, standing beside her teacher, Paul Farver. Like many rural areas, small schools were erected throughout the area and within walking distance. Students were organized by grades 1-8 and due to the small population, some grade levels consisted of only a couple of children. One teacher had to address a broad range of reading, writing and academic skills. It was common for older students to help teach younger ones. Mary Lou’s tutoring assignment with Drysten in chapter one would have been typical of those times. Those who have watched episodes of Little House on the Prairie saw the Ingall girls do the same.
In chapter seven, the men of the 73rd celebrated Christmas. Did soldiers really take time to do this in war?
Not everyone, depending upon the circumstances, but yes, as much as they could. Thanksgiving and Christmas were important morale boosters and thus a great deal of effort was put into reminding troops of home. There are numerous accounts of men singing, putting up mock Christmas trees, and lighting candles. The U.S. Army made sure that soldiers received traditional holiday food whenever or wherever possible. Here is a copy of the Thanksgiving menu that was served to Biil and the 73rd stationed in Italy on November 23, 1944.
Did civilians like little Anna and her mother really die after the 506th moved out of Eindhoven?
After their city was liberated, Easy Company moved north towards their next assignment while the British supply lines followed through. The Germans discovered this and sent Luftwaffe to bomb the caravan. The civilian population were victims with 227 killed and another 810 wounded. Trysten thus assumed that Anna and her mother were casualties. This is why he cursed the name of British General Montgomery who planned Operation Market Garden. Historians cite this as the largest military failure of the allied forces during WWII and was depicted in the 1977 film, A Bridge Too Far.
In Chapter 13, you write about the tremendous chaos of the Normandy Jump. It is nearly impossible to believe that the paratroopers succeeded with their missions. Has this been overly romanticized?
The missions of the 101st and 82nd Airborne were planned and practiced down to very precise details, but the implementation required something very different. Experts and historians agree that with the scattered separation of paratroopers behind enemy lines troopers had to use guerilla warfare strategies to achieve their original objectives. The Germans expected a highly organized attack from concentrations of troops. The scattering of the paratroopers threw the enemy into chaos and panic. They were unprepared to fight small pockets of enemy soldiers who were difficult to locate. It was perhaps by sheer luck that the jump caused this unanticipated situation. Remember that the paratroopers were trained to expect chaos and invent solutions. This put their skills to test and it worked.
Is Rogue’s Hollow, where the G-man boys pull their last prank, a real place?
Yes. It is located near Doylestown, Ohio. The Hollow was the location of several coal mines with deep crevices and rolling hills. The miners were a rough bunch and spent evenings roaming the bars, getting into fights that led to murders and missing bodies. At one time in the late 1800’s it was considered the most dangerous location in the country. Law enforcement refused to patrol the location and warned citizens they would be at their own peril if they entered. Over the years a number of ghost stories have accumulated and today there is a Chippewa-Rogues Hollow Historical Society that hosts tours, walks and events.
https://www.chippewarogueshollow.org
Features of My Next Book
Point Breeze Chautauqua
As America transitioned into the 20th Century people desired to enrich their lives with further education in the form of lectures, music, theatrical performances and entertainment. Travel was still limited to horse and buggy, trains, and boats. Thus, there was a need to bring cultural opportunities to audiences located far from large cities. The Chautauqua Movement was founded on four pillars: Arts, Education, Recreation, and Religion. When Professor John Eberly retired as head of the Smithville Normal School, he traveled to the mother of the movement, in Chautauqua New York. He decided to create a local branch on his farm on the outskirts of Smithville, Ohio. It was located on acreage with lots of trees in an upper grove and lower grove. A portion of the Sugar Creek wound through the property. Eberly used his own funds to build an outdoor auditorium, a dining hall and kitchen along with an area for camping, a baseball field and parking area for carriages and cars. The first season began in the summer of 1899 and provided entertainment and Sunday church services for thousands who traveled by buggy, car, or train from as far away as Cleveland and Akron. My next novel will be include events of Point Breeze.
Women’s Rights Movement
Ohio played a key role in the passing of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. As early as 1851, the Ohio Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio hosted Sojourner Truth, speaker on African- American women and the issue of equality. And over the next few decades multiple bills were introduced to establish women’s right to vote in Ohio and throughout the country. Mary Crites and her daughters will be at the center of the fight.
End of the Gilded Age & Growth of Unions
As American ramped up industrial production, many Americans left farm life for jobs in the big cities. Little towns like Smithville were no exception as jobs related to the rapid rise of the automobile launched the manufacture of tires, making Akron the rubber capital of the word. Elmer Barkley and other young men of the community left for life in the big city. And like many aspects of the transition away from the control of wealth held by the elite during the Gilded Age, the war over wages unfolded. Young workers demanded a share of the rewards through organized union efforts.
Massacre of Native Americans
The stories of how Native Americans were pushed out of their homes to make way for westward expansion are numerous and disturbing. Promises were broken and many lives were taken. One of the featured speakers of the Chautauqua movement was Tahan, a Native American who survived numerous attacks from U.S. troops and competing tribes. His presentation on the Chautauqua circuit, “From the Warpath to the Pulpit,” included the Smithville Point Breeze location on two occasions. In my next novel, Tahan will connect with a local Indian who comes back to Ohio to reestablish his native roots.
World War One
World War One was a war over the control of wealth in Europe between families that enjoyed the riches of the Gilded Age. America tried desperately to stay out of the fight. But eventually, young men joined the trenches in what was considered the most brutal conflict in the history of the world. My book will reveal the lives of characters who engage in this deadly war in a variety of roles.
Flu Epidemic
Very few went untouched by the Flu Pandemic that took over 100-million lives throughout the world between 1918 and 1920. Unfortunately it will find a path to Smithville in my prequel to South on Summit, leaving families with painful losses.
Post Your Review!
People who read historical novels are always searching for their next book. Some go to Amazon and read reviews while others reach out to a major site called Good Reads where both authors and readers connect. Several of my readers of South on Summit have posted short reviews on Amazon. This is rather easy to do and only takes a minute or so. It’s the same process as you would use in rating and reviewing any product offered on their website. Here is the link for South on Summit: Amazon –
Scroll down to: Review this product where you can read other reviews and write your own!
GoodReads
Goodreads.com is a wonderful site for readers as well as authors. Many readers use it to find the next book in their favorite genre. Membership is free. Once you join you can search for current books and read the reviews posted by other readers. Just like Amazon, you can rate a book and post a short review.
Link to join Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/sign_up.
Then enter “South on Summit” in the search box and it will take you here:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220446504-south-on-summit?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=u9B7e8IVTA&rank=1
Scroll down to read reviews and then rate and write your own.
Thank you! Your kind effort will expose my book to more readers!
Tim Donates copies of South on Summit
Per several requests, I have donated multiple copies of my novel to the following libraries:
Wayne County Library – Wooster, Ohio
Orrville Public Library – Orrville, Ohio
Sandusky Library – Sandusky, Ohio
Miami University King Library – Oxford, Ohio
