First of all, thanks, again, to those of you who helped me out with the synopsis of Prairie Child. I have finally managed to start sending it out.

This is a more extensive request, time-wise. Some of you may remember I was working, years ago, on a book based on my dad's oral history. In 2008, I decided to fictionalise it during NaNoWriMo (www.nanowrimo.org)in Nov. So, I came up with a just over 50,000 word novel. I have had one reader, a 98 yr old friend of my dad's, say he really likes it, which is great, but I need more input. I am not interested in actual editing or anything, just any impressions it may leave after being read. I realise this is a lot to ask for, but I would really value your opinion. As before, I would like to keep this to just a few people and only if they have the time and inclination to do so. Thanks, in advance, for any interest.

I haven't written the synopsis, yet, but below is the prologue, with some names/birthdates removed, for now:

JUST THE FACTS


In 1878, when Harvey Burton Crawford left Nova Scotia to try his luck in Leadville, Colorado, it was in its second boom. Silver had been discovered in the heavy lead deposits of the earlier gold mining days and everyone flocked to the promise of riches. Harvey was twenty-one years old. Like thousands of other, he travelled over Mosquito Pass to reach the boomtown. It is said another Nova Scotian, Miss Elizabeth Elinore Fountain, followed him, as she'd set her sights on him for a husband. Her year of immigration is listed as 1882. They were married in Leadville on the 19th of August of that year.


Harvey made his living as a muleskinner, a freighter with his own team of mules and a wagon with the capacity to haul several tons of ore up and down steep and treacherous trails, from mine to smelter, and back.

The Crawfords eventually had ten children, three of whom died in infancy, one of them a twin. Their fourth child, Beulah Rebecca, was the author's grandmother. She grew up in Leadville, graduated from high school and Normal School where she obtained a teaching certificate.

According to family lore and a biographical sketch in the 1905 book, Progressive Men of Western Colorado, Lorenzo Dowd Hudson, followed the Arkansas River to Leadville in 1880 when he was twenty-six. He also made his living by hauling ore and, by all reports, as a lawman during Leadville's rough and tumble days of high-living, when the money flowed like manna from heaven. Having made his acquaintance with a certain Miss Mary Beulah Forsythe on the wagon train up the Arkansas, he went on to court her in Leadville. She was a Southern belle whose father had been a Rebel spy from Fayette County, West Virginia. Having won her heart, Dowd , as he was known, married Mary Beulah the 1st of December 1881, in Leadville.

The Hudsons had one son, Horace Forsythe Hudson, who died of diphtheria, when only a toddler. They were expecting a second child, the author's grandfather, when they left Leadville, in the dead of winter in 1885, to homestead a ranch on Garfield Creek, south of New Castle, Colorado. They did so following the advice and earlier settling in Garfield County of her father, Abraham Forsythe.

New Castle, at that time, was known as "Grand Buttes" so named after the "Grand River" later known as the "Colorado." It was not named New Castle until 1886. It wasn't until about 1887 that it became "civilized" boasting "a local cannery, brickyard, brewery and cement factory, fifteen saloons, five restaurants, three livery stables, two bakeries, several hotels with bars, and a volunteer fire department."

The second son of Dowd and Beulah Hudson was born before they reached New Castle. They named him Paul Franklin, known affectionately as "Frank." He grew up to be a fine man well over six feet with broad shoulders, well-suited for the ranching he was born into.

After Beulah Rebecca Crawford, the author's grandmother, began teaching, she moved to the Western Slope of Colorado, teaching in such places as Fruita, Mack Creek, and Sunlight. At some point, she and Frank Hudson met. He courted her and they married on the 11th of June 19XX. They had one son, X.X. Hudson, born XX of May 19XX.

X.X. grew up on the ranch his Grandfather Hudson had homesteaded. We children used to beg him for stories of our grandparents and great-grandparents, as well as his time as a young boy with plenty of room to roam and a favourite horse and dog to accompany him.

He grew up to marry another New Castle native, V.V. Youmans, whose father owned the general store and whose mother was also an educator like his Grandmother Crawford. They had four daughters and one son.
Quite often, their family would be out camping or just out for a Sunday picnic when the stories would begin to flow. The campfire would have died to embers by the time he'd finally say enough, "My voice is starting to go." In among the stories, he would also lead us, along with mom in her beautiful, sweet high voice, in singing old cowboy songs and others which the two of them had grown up hearing, old Victorian favourites of their parents. Imagine if you will, a slow, Western Colorado drawl in a deep, gravely voice, spinning tales of spellbinding fascination to eager young children:

If there is interest, I will also post the first chapter, so potential readers may get an idea of how it goes.:-)

Thanks a bunch and, please, I understand if no one has the time or energy for this. Lots going on in all our lives, I know.

kat