Find out how the Een Sisters got from Pomeroy, Ohio, to the pages of my book

Agnes McDermott (left) looks at you from Eden Park, Cincinnati, Sept. 22, 1913. Her sister, whom we called "Auntie," is beside her. This is the  look Grandma Agnes gave me when I wore my ballcap into her house or messed with the doilies on the armrests of her couch.

Three 1913 photos of Agnes and her sister in Eden Park. "Zeppelins Over Denver" rises in the background.

I am a big fan of the Writer's Guides written by the WPA's Federal Writers' Project during the 1930s.
Most attention has been paid to the state guides but some cities also got the same treatment.

I was researching the scribbled handwriting on photos of my grandmother, Agnes McDermott, taken of her and her sister in the city's Eden Park. The ink has faded but I could read "Cincinnati Ohio" but what I thought was Edeu Park was Eden Park (thanks Google), one of the city's oldest parks. Someone crossed out part of the date but I found Sept. 22, 1913 on the middle photo (see above). A search brought me the Cincinnati Guide, "compiled by workers in the Writers' Program of the Works Progress Administration in the State of Ohio." Pub date shows 1943 which isn't an oddity as some didn't make it to print during the Great Depression. 

My role as eldest in a large family led to my office becoming repository of family lore. I like being surrounded by family. Photos await sorting as do books and military medals and souvenirs such as Lieutenant Shay's gas mark and flare pistol from his service as a cavalry officer in The Great War. I write on his desk, where he wrote many MONY insurance policies and is wooden filing cabinet where they were stored. My sister Molly sent them to me as she sorted through a life in a two-story family home in Tallahassee to an apartment in Decatur, Ga. We also got her silverware including tiny little forks that I hand to friends and family when they ask for a fork which tickles me but doesn't always get a similar response. I am surrounded by books. Some are mine, others are from my father's presidential library which he divided among his five sons. I have books upon books from a life as a writer, reader, and literary arts administrator. Should one of Elon Musk's spaceships go awry at the Cape and wipe out Ormond Beach, nobody will know our history.

I write this because my grandmother with the steely gaze and her sister inspired characters in my historical novel. In "Zeppelins," they become the Een Sisters (Colleen, Pegeen, and Ireen) of Pomeroy, Ohio. Looking for adventure, the Eens get in their Model T and head West. Grandma and her sister and two friends did the very same thing in the year after the war. Grandma Agnes and sister stayed in Denver; their friends returned to Ohio. I often wondered what inspired the trip. Agnes was nearing age 30 and her sister was older. She had been postmistress in Mason, Ohio, in the years before the war.  They drove mostly unpaved roads to Colorado. We have photos of the Ohio women and their Model T in the Rocky Mountains. Agnes met Martin, married, and had three strapping children, the middle one was my mother. 

The Een Sisters play a pivotal role in my book. Check it out. They appear in Chapter 10: Road Trip: The Een Sisters of Pomeroy, Ohio. Here's how it begins:

When the EEN sisters -- Colleen, Pegeen, and Ireen McCarthy -- decided to drive from Pomeroy, Ohio, to the Rocky Mountains in the summer of 1919, their adoptive parents were aghast. 

"You'll be attacked by highwaymen," said Uncle Mike. He and Aunt Sara had looked after them since their parents died in The Great Ohio River Flood of 1910.

"But Uncle Mike," said Colleen, who often served as the mouthpiece for the girls as she was the eldest, "there are no highwaymen in Ohio."

"Indians, then," said Aunt Sara. "On the prairies of the Wild West."

Pegeen, the middle sister, laughed. "The Indians are on reservations -- or dead from smallpox."

"Smallpox!" Aunt Sara put her hands to her mouth. "Disease, too?"

Ireen, the youngest, barely nine months behind Pegeen, said, "Diseases have all been wiped out. Except for the Spanish flu, of course."

Aunt Sara made the sign of the cross. "Blessed be. We're all thankful to be here."

Hit the link on the sidebar to find out what happens. You can order an ebook at Barnes&Noble.