Gravedigger's Daughter: Growing Up Rural - Softcover

King, Debra R

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1087960029 ISBN 13: 9781087960029

Publisher: IngramSpark, 2022

Synopsis

Gravedigger's Daughter - Growing up Rural is a collection of short stories and essays based on actual events in the 1950-1970s in northern west-central Wisconsin. Little Elk Creek is a tightly knit community of Norwegian immigrant farm families who assist one another at harvest time and share their skills so all could succeed.

 

Debra Raye King shares her remembrances from an era when her father was the local gravedigger at the local church cemetery and it wasn't unusual for a daughter to help shovel. Moms were mostly homemakers, dads wage earners, and the children attended Farmers Union Camp, 4H, and the Luther League when not in school or helping with chores. In this small community, Debbi and her twin Sue were the only students in first grade at the one-room eight-grade schoolhouse two miles away from home. Shopping was done in Menomonie where highlights of the trip included a visit to the Farmers Store, a meal out at the Dew Drop Inn, and guessing in winter when the clunker would fall through the ice.

 

Relish the aroma of fresh baked bread and pies, share giggles and games with the cousins and neighborhood kids, and feel the wind in your hair at the top of the windmil.

 

Experience the grit, heartache, joy, and innocence of growing up rural with these tales of one family farm in Wisconsin.

 

The Wisconsin Writers Association is proud to help keep these memories alive as part of our mission to provide a structured fellowship of amateur and professional writers who support and assist fellow writers with all phases, types, and categories of writing. We strongly encourage documentation of personal, family, regional, and cultural stories both fiction and nonfiction, and offer informational educational services to writers and to the general public. Find more at www.WiWrite.org.

About this title

About the Author

Debra Raye King is a retired college dean and university administrator. Daily, she cares for her flock of registered Icelandic sheep, and takes long forest trail hikes with her loving husband, Tom. Debbi has been assisted by their Sheltie-Border Collie mixes, Sonja Snow Dog and Scotty Boots. In February 2022, their newest family member, Sunny, a smart, polite, and durable three-year-old Shetland sheepdog, also joined their pack. Debbi, Tom, and their active critters live in a five-acre paradise of old growth forest in Douglas County in northwestern Wisconsin. She and Tom are also busy every day at their Sunny Cove Farm on high South Range hills, overlooking Lake Superior. Debbi and Tom have two grown sons, a daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters. When not writing, Debbi is active with complex knitting and sewing, and creating new wearable fiber art. She and also creates and bakes new delights, and enjoys the outdoors every day in all seasons. Debbi sings and plays percussion with the folk group HALLBJORN, is a karate black belt, an active skier, and an enthusiastic skater on glistening clear ice of Upper St. Croix Lake, just down their front slope.

Edition details

• Publisher: IngramSpark
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1087960029
• ISBN 13: 9781087960029
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336