Without reality TV shows or fancy websites, Molly found a way to learn about her family’s history.
Today, she might have a future working in the field.
Without reality TV shows or fancy websites, Molly found a way to learn about her family’s history.
Today, she might have a future working in the field.
Molly’s ancestors were part of the California Gold Rush, considered by many to have lasted from 1846-49.
However, other accounts indicate that the desire to discover gold has never ended.
The predecessor to Fire in the Heart is West Against the Wind, which began as serialized fiction.
My great-grandfather, Reuben Ketchum, wrote serial stories for newspapers in the 19th century.
For others, like Charles Dickens, serialized fiction was the springboard to literary stardom.
Molly’s mother believed that one ancestor had buried a gold nugget somewhere in California.
Those treasures are still being found.
Griswold, the town in Fire in the Heart, was named for my early Vermont ancestors.
One Griswold who began life in Vermont became a controversial literary figure and rival to famed author Edgar Allan Poe.
The setting for Fire in the Heart, Griswold, is a fictional Vermont town. I invented it all, down to a map of the community. Here are more pseudo-places existing only in books.
Molly gets a clue about her family’s past through a daguerreotype.
Far from a simple snapshot, these photographic relics are being kept alive by a small group of devotees.
In Fire in the Heart, Molly’s mother worked as a geologist.
Life has gotten easier since then for women pursuing geoscience careers. Here’s one perspective: