WHAT HAPPENED?

Was I dreaming?  I do go to sleep at the computer sometimes with my head against the keyboard, and in the lounger with the laptop in my lap.  But, I was sure that some posts by other people came up on my blog when I went into it a few minutes ago.  I would think I had pushed the wrong button and got someone's else's blog, but my posts on my blog were mixed in with them. I don't know what I did, or what happened, but those posts I thought I saw by other people are gone and mine are still there -- here.

Can anyone tell me what happened?

THANKS FOR THE STORIES

Hey, this is great!  I pull up my blog and here all these great comments and stories from other writer-friends.  Thanks.  Hartline Literary has a great bunch of writers and agents, and I'm so happy and thankful to be counted among you. As I learn more about our group, social media and how these things work -- and stop taking so much time trying to figure out this technical stuff, I will try to return the favors.

FUTURE GUEST BLOGGERS: Writers and tellers of family tales.

In forthcoming blogs I hope to feature other writers and their books, along with an ocassional family blog. During the next few days watch for a post from my older son Tony, who is helping me with promotion for my new novel and trying to help me learn some things about using social media.

Tony, an ordained minister, former pastor and counselor, Christian School teacher and principal, has worked retail with computers and the new Smart Phones. He enjoys technical "stuff" whereas his mother is lost with it. But we do have some things in common, such as writing, some of which he will share with you as one of my guest bloggers.

Watch for his blog, coming soon, about the lady to whom my book of local history, EARLY SETTLERS OF THE K-SPRINGS/CHELSEA AREA, was dedicated--things he remembers about her as his great-grandmother, along with stories he heard about her and from her while growing up.

This brave and interesting lady who, widowed shortly before her fourth child was born, farmed, taught school, raised a grandson, and recorded historical notes, along with births, deaths and marriages of everyone she heard of from the time she was a young girl in Roanoke, Alabama in the late 1800s.

I think you will enjoy her stories.  And you may want to share a few of your own as comments on this blog. If you have long tales to share, please "follow" this blog, IN HIS STRENGTH, then share your stories with us on our facebook page at shelbasheltonnivens,author. While you are on our author page, you might like to enter our drawing for a free copy of EARLY SETTLERS OF THE K-SPRINGS/CHELSEA AREA by "liking" that page, "sharing" it on your own facebook timeline, and writing a "comment" on it. (REMEMBER TO DO ALL 3 TO GET YOUR NAME IN THE POT FOR THE OCTOBER 1 DRAWING.)

Romance,true love and debut novel

A seventy-six-year-old's debut romance novel?
Yes.  who should know better about romance and true love than a woman who's been married to the same man for fifty-eight years, and is still in love with him?

It was a chicken wishbone at my grandma's house--we called it a "pulley bone" back then--that started it all, even before he gave me flowers (from a florist, no less) for my tenth birthday. That, too, was at my grandma's house next door to my family.

You can read the pulley bone story on a previous blog post.

The flowers came from his aunt's and uncles flower shop, Mable's Florist in Besseemer, Alabama. I think they were carnations. I remember they were in a ceramic vase that was a little girl who had a basket of flowers on her back. I don't know what became of the vase, but I still have the card that was with it.

Kenneth was really bashful around girls. A cousin had told me he didn't like girls. But he was with his daddy who, along with my grandma and some teenage cousins, wanted me to marry him someday. So I imagine his daddy prompted him to give me the flowers.

My grandmother, a cousin, three of my then-five siblings, and I, all had birthdays in July, so we would have an ice cream party together in Grandma's backyard. We had gathered there when Kenneth and his daddy--Mr. Murray, we kids called him--got to the party (Mr. Murray boarded with my grandparents). And Kenneth walked up to me, turned his head, and said, "here."

See how romantic he was, even back then at barely thirteen-years-old?

THE MISTAKEN HEIRESS coming soon

I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).

Hope and a future? How can Kate believe these words apply to her, when her plans for the inheritance she thought was hers, is claimed by an arrogant stranger with bright blue eyes and a silly grin? To keep an eye on what the stranger is doing with her family's old home place, she agrees to help him repair the deserted farmhouse and clear adjoining woodlands. But after Kate falls for the man, who will repair her broken heart when a lovely, young woman and two small children suddenly appear to help him map out plans for a new house?

For the writing of Kate's story, I drew on my experience writing and publishing short fiction and drama, and as a newspaper columnist and journalist writing about people with a fierce love for the land. While living for several years among descendants of the first settlers to our community and writing numerous stories about them, I have come to understand their love for "the old home place." Living with my husband Ken and several generations of our family on land settled by his ancestors, I have come to love it, too.

Please watch for The Mistaken Heiress by Shelba Shelton Nivens, a contemporary, inspirational romance from Harlequin/Heartsong in April, 2014.

COURTIN' IN THE GOOD, OLE DAYS: Frank and Ressie Vick Kendrick

I’ve had a request for more Early Settlers posts, so here’s one of my favorites about “Courtin’ in the Good Ole Days” from my Early Settlers of the K-Springs/Chelsea Area book. Frank and Ressie Vick Kendrick (both now deceased) told it to me around 1974 for a newspaper article I was writing. I’m not sure how old she was at the time, but Frank was close to 90 years old. (He was born July 1887.)

Ressie’s family was from Joiner Town between Columbiana and old East Saginaw, which is now part of Chelsea. But her father George Vick moved the family around a lot, she said, following his work with a timber-cutting operation. That’s how they came to live at East Saginaw where she met Frank Kendrick.

They didn’t actually play together as children, Ressie said, because they were both very bashful. But Frank found ways to get her attention.

She recounted with a smile, while Frank just listened and grinned, “One day I was out in the yard washing clothes for Mama’s twin babies, when directly something shined in my face, and it was him out on the porch with a mirror.”

“Do you remember the first letter I ever wrote you?” he asked her.

She did, of course, but he told the story anyway for my benefit -- and because he was enjoying their remembrances as much as Ressie and I were.

“It was when I was a teenager and worked for Saginaw Lumber Company. I would walk right past her house going to the railroad track where I rode on a hand car to the lumber company. Well, on this particular morning, I walked up close to the open front door and tossed a letter to her inside the house.”
Ressie confided that his first talk of marriage was also in a letter. But they later made wedding plans in person, sitting in the parlor at the Vick home. She told him that night, “You’ll have to ask Daddy.”

“Well, you’ll have to go in there with me to ask him,” he told her.

So Ressie agreed and together they headed for the room where Mr. Vick sat. But just as they reached his open doorway, Ressie slipped on by it, leaving Frank to face her father alone.

Sixty-plus years later, sitting under a shade tree with Frank and me, she still found amusement in the trick she’d played that day. “I went out and hid behind the house until the men folk finished their talking.” she laughed.

Frank Kendrick and Ressie Vick were married on July 26, 1908.

OLD K-SPRINGS SCHOOL PICTURES