It is an amazing love story and I enjoy sharing it. It is the story of my Mother’s parents … Minnie Wood Warren Hobart and Timothy Dwight Hobart. One afternoon a room-full of folks at the retirement center where I now live gathered to hear this story. The book is full of photographs from their lives and era so I projected a bunch of the photos on the screen in a PowerPoint presentation. Everyone enjoyed the pictures and the stories while sipping their glass of wine.
As I told them, I have had more fun with this book than most anything I’ve ever done. And I’ve had a great life with some pretty interesting twists and turns along the way.
While writing A Pioneer Love Story, the Letters of Minnie Hobart, I reconnected with a cousin in Wichita Falls. I hadn’t seen her in years in spite of the fact that I was in her wedding back in the dark ages. Rodney and I had fascinating trips to Vermont and Texas on research ventures. It is amazing what can be found by poking around in libraries and old file cabinets here and there. I even found two interviews with Minnie by Dr. L. F. Sheffy (head of the history department at West Texas A and M University) when he was writing The Life and Times of Timothy Dwight Hobart.
Book signings in Vermont, Texas and Kansas have triggered conversations with some fascinating people. The Vermont signing took place in the Montpelier Public Library…down the street from The Inn at Montpelier…a beautiful bed and breakfast where we stayed a couple of times.
In Texas, one signing was at the White Deer Land Museum, the building that housed my grandfather’s office with the White Deer Land Company. The second Texas book signing took place in the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, TX. Being in Canyon gave us the opportunity to explore some of the Palo Duro Canyon State Park…a glorious adventure.
The Kansas book signing was in Arkansas City’s Burford Art Centre…which housed the movie theatre when we were growing up.
Who knows where my grandparents will take me next.
Minnie and Dwight in 1934 with their grandchildren (three more were coming later) at their Washita Ranch south of Canadian, TX. I’m the one on the right with the big bow in my hair. I think that was the style in those days.
