Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Viva Strong Italian Women! by Maria DiRico

JENN McKINLAY: One of my favorite authors, Ellen Byron, is visiting today but she is appearing as her alter ego Maria DiRico to introduce us to her brand new Catering Hall mystery series! I was lucky enough to read and advance copy and called it "A fresh, fun, and fabulous debut to what promises to be a fantastic new mystery series!" Here's Ellen/Maria to tell us more about what inspired this series. Also, she's offering a giveaway! One lucky commenter will be randomly chosen to receive a copy. Don't miss out!

Ellen: The relationship between my protagonist and her “nonna” in my new Catering Hall Mysteries is central to the series. This reflects my wonderful luck of having been raised with two strong women as role models – my mother and grandmother, both Italian immigrants. 

They came from a picturesque town called Orsogna in the Abruzzo region, immigrating to America in 1930, just in time for the Great Depression. Here’s a photo taken shortly after their arrival. The stuffed animal was a prop. Mom says she screamed bloody murder when she had to return it to the photographer.


Life was hard for the new arrivals. They ate rotten fruit that shops discarded. For a treat, mother would pick up lollipops or gum kids dropped on the street. My grandfather, who I never knew, scraped together whatever jobs he could. Nonna found piecemeal work crocheting rosettes for baby’s hats. She and my mother would pick up a gross of the hats from a factory in Queens and carry them back to whatever apartment they were living in at the time. Nonna was paid $1.50 per gross. Mom says that because of this, she’s never forgotten that a gross equals 144. It’s emblazoned on her brain.

Eventually my grandfather got a job with the city as a sewer cleaner. Nonna went to work in a factory doing sewing piecework, meaning she was paid per finished piece. It wasn’t easy but Papa and Nonna managed to save enough money to buy this two-family home in Astoria. 



Meanwhile, Mom carved her own path. She trained herself to speak without the thick New York/Italian accent of her family and got a job as a secretary in Manhattan. Raised by her father to love reading and the arts, she shared that passion with her younger cousins. Here she is with her late cousin Antoinette, who once told me that the times she spent exploring the Big Apple with Mom were some of the happiest memories of her life. 


Italy is considered a matriarchal society. The power of the women in my immediate and extended Italian family was proof positive of that. Besides my nonna and mother, there were the cousins who came over from Italy with barely any schooling, saved their pennies, and bought buildings in Astoria that made them millionaires. One cousin, the first in the family to attend college, became a doctor. Years later, her mother, who had arrived in America at the age of fifteen after surviving the horrors of World War II, did the exact same thing.


Mom used to sing to me an old Orsognese song that went
"Le donne di Orsogna sono le piĆ¹ belle." Translation: the
women of Orsogna are the prettiest. They're also the smartest,
most resourceful women around, and I and so proud to share
their genes and history.

By the way, "Maria DiRico," my pen name, was Nonna's 
maiden name. Viva le donne di Orsogna!






So, how about it, Reds and Readers, have your parents and grandparents influenced your writing or your life? Where did they come from and how has it influenced you?


HERE COMES THE BODY is available at your local bookstore, as well at Amazon and Barnes and Noble


BUY NOW

BIO: Maria DiRico is the pen name of mystery author Ellen Byron, who is first-generation Italian American on her mother’s side. MARDI GRAS MURDER, the fourth book in Ellen's bestselling Cajun Country Mystery series, won the 2018 Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel. The series has also won multiple Best Humorous Mystery Lefty awards. TV credits include Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly Odd Parents. Fun fact: she worked as cater-waiter for Martha Stewart, a credit she never tires of sharing. Maria/Ellen loves to translate what she learned from Martha into recipes for her books. You can reach her at:
https://www.facebook.com/CateringHallMysteries/




89 comments:

  1. Congratulations, Maria/Ellen, on your new series. It sounds wonderful and I’m looking forward to meeting Mia . . . .

    My parents and grandparents were all born here . . . my mom and grandmother were strong women who took care of their families and held full-time jobs as well. They were amazing role models . . . .

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    1. I come from matriarchal stock, too! Amazing what these women endured.

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    2. Love that, Joan! Brava, strong women role models!

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  2. I've already read this book as well, and it is fabulous. You don't want to refuse this debut.

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  3. I enjoy the Cajun country mysteries so much! I have no doubt that I’ll like the new series too. Three of four of my grandparents were born here in the U. S. Arkansas, Texas, and Kansas. My paternal grandfather came here from Sweden as a teen. He did all kinds of work, settling first in Wisconsin and then in Kansas City, Missouri. Eventually he owned a couple of neighborhood grocery stores. He smoked and drank despite his wife’s opposition to cigarettes and alcohol. She, in turn, tried to get all her grandsons to promise that they wouldn’t.

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    1. I love the Cajun mysteries, too. Ellen is remarkably talented to cover such diverse settings!

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    2. Your grandmother sounds like a great lady. I hope her grandsons took her advice! And thank you so much! You too, Jenn!

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  4. Congratulations on the new series, Ellen/Maria. It sounds fun.

    My mother's grandparents came to America from England in the 1870s. Everybody else was already here, including the Vermont Yankees who moved to the Missouri frontier to build a missionary outpost, just in time to get caught up in all the Missouri/Kansas border raiding the in 1850s, building up to the Civil War. There were German farmers and who-knows-where-they-came-from Ozark hillbillies, too. The city grandmother was funny, fun, a good cook, and a crafting wizard, but the hillbilly grandmother? Let's just say, if I had to choose one to get the whole family organized and lead us all safely through the middle of Hell, I'd pick Grandma Sherrell. The Devil and all his minions wouldn't stand a chance. She was that tough and wily. Her husband, my Grandpa Jack, was a good carpenter, and as sweet and loving a man as I'll ever know, plus a grand storyteller. I'm sure I draw on their legacy daily.

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    1. Aw, Gigi, I love your family's history!

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    2. Oh, this is wonderful!Gigi, methinks you need to write about your family!

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  5. Ellen, I'm already behind and now I have a new series! Yay! Too many books is a good thing! Love the stories of your family making their way in America. My family--all of the ancestors--were here way before there was an America. One of my favorite stories involves the menfolk during the Civil War. Two brothers on my mom's side called up for duty (on the Confederate side) in North Carolina. Basically called in sick and eventually one of them, my great-great-grandfather, pops up in eastern Kentucky after the war.

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  6. Congratulations on the new book and series! I already own a copy and can't wait to read it, so don't enter me in the giveaway. I've learned so much about you today, Ellen! (I mean, Maria!)

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    1. LOL - we should call her Maria now :)

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    2. OMG, this two names thing is rough. I keep signing books as Ellen Byron and then having to add Maria's signature! Oh, and Annette - THANK YOU SO MUCH!

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  7. Ellen, Maria, what a wonderful story you have--and now your characters will too! Here's hoping the new book is a raging success!

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  8. I have your book with me in Puerto Rico this week! I love the origin story of this series, Ellen. (By the way, the last line of your post was cut off, at least in my browser: "By the way, “Maria D)

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    1. It did post weirdly - the last line is there on my display it's -- By the way, “Maria DiRico,” my pen name, was Nonna’s maiden name. Viva le donne di Orsogna!

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    2. Edith, thank you so much! Jenn, glad that line is posting, at least here.

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  9. Congratulations, Ellen!

    It strikes me that today's immigrants, in particular the Hispanic ones from Central America, are also doing the menial jobs your immigrant ancestors did. This country is built on such striving to make lives better, isn't it?

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    1. It sure is. My family were fisherman in New England and factory workers in the wire mills. Survival.

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    2. It absolutely is. My Italian grandfather worked in the city's sewer system. Like I wrote, Nonna was paid by the piece. On the Jewish side, they opened stores. They all worked incredibly hard to make their American dream pay off.

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    3. And my Hungarian great grandfather worked in a coal mine in West Virginia, and may have ended up in a mine collapse.

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  10. Welcome, Ellen, and congratulations.

    I second Edith is letting you know that the last line of your post was cut off. And I'm curious to know how that sentence ended!

    My mother's family has interesting stories of where they came from, but I've only gotten to know them in recent years.(My mom was from Louisiana and married my dad during WWII and moved to Ohio, leaving her relationship with her family very strained.) My father's family had been in the U.S. longer, I think, but had been mired in poverty in the "hollers" of West Virginia. I heard no stories about their origins, just about the struggles they had escaped when my paternal grandmother had finally divorced her abusive husband and come to Ohio to make a life for herself and her two sons.

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    1. Weird - it's on mine - By the way, “Maria DiRico,” my pen name, was Nonna’s maiden name. Viva le donne di Orsogna!

      Anyone else?

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    2. Oh, bummer re: the last line. But your family history is fascinating.

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  11. Congratulations on your new release! One of my grandmothers was an orphan, raised with her sisters by their stern grandfather and his WCTU second wife up upstate NY. The other moved to California as a girl, married, and raised a family in Berkeley. She was a champion gardener and seamstress.

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    1. Margaret, hi! Your poor grandmother. What does WCTU stand for?

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    2. Womens Christian Temperance Union. When members gathered in the parlor, the granddaughters had to be on their best behavior, sing, and do recitations. My grandfather tolerated the organization, but kept a bottle of whiskey in his desk. He also sent all three girls to Mt Holyoke to learn a profession--one was a librarian, one was a HS principal, and Grandma was a teacher until she married.

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  12. Congratulations on the new series! Sounds just like the sort of thing I love to read. My family has been here for many, many generations and I've always felt a little bit gypped that there were no "old country" reminiscences to hear about. So I have to get such tales from the books I read.

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    1. Lol, Judi, my immigrant mother was always jealous of people who've been here for generations. She felt her status made her less-than, no matter what we told her.

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  13. Congratulations Ellen/Maria!

    Three out of the four of my grandparents were born here, but my mother's father came from Croatia. I never really "knew" him; he died of a massive heart attack when I was not quite 2. I do know, however, that he worked hard to acclimate to his new home and was held back in kindergarten, I think because his English wasn't good enough. My grandmother learned to bake the "old country" recipes that he loved. I've always been sad she didn't leave behind the recipe for Christmas nut roll and I've never been able to replicate it.

    This is not to say the rest of my grandparents had it easy. Both grandmothers came from small Pennsylvania towns with hardscrabble lives, and my paternal grandfather was the only one of his family to escape alcoholism - and go on to make something of his life.

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    1. Liz, what a story. My nonna learned to speak English, but it was definitely a second language for her. Your family sounds fascinating. And I too, wish you had that nut roll recipe because I would borrow it.

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  14. Congratulations! Ellen/Maria, it was wonderful chatting last night over at Cozy Experiences. Alas, Facebook would not let me comment during the chat. They cut me off while I was in the midst of responding to Kathleen.

    Welcome to Jungle Reds! That's a wonderful photo of your mom and her parents. I just started reading your book last night. Mia Carina starts working with her father.

    We all are a family of readers. I remember seeing books on shelves whenever I visited my grandparents, my great aunt, and my great uncle. My maternal grandparents were first generation Americans. Their families lived in many different countries before coming to America. One great grandmother was already a school teacher at the age of 14 in Holland while the family were waiting for passage to America. When I was a kid, I learned about Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims. After I learned that the Pilgrims lived in Holland before coming to Plymouth Rock, I asked my mom if her grandparents were Pilgrims because they lived in Holland before coming to America. LOL . My grandfather gave me a gift of the Nancy Drew Book Club. I got dual Nancy Drew books every month. My grandmother gave me her Chanel dress, which I still wear. She liked to read non-fiction.

    BY coincidence, while I was doing research into my father's family, since I never met his parents. His mother died during the Battle of Britain and his American father died young. I discovered that my American grandfather was a descendant of Dutch / French Huguenots who arrived in New Amsterdam, right before it became New York. He was also a descendant of an Irish clergyman who came to the colonies in the 1600s. My American grandfather came from a family of farmers. My father did not learn how to read until he was 14 years old and is now a big fan of science fiction novels.

    Great post and great questions!

    Diana

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    1. Diana, I'm so sorry you got cut off! FB really needs to clean up their act.

      What a fascinating family history. Oooh, a Chanel dress!!! Lucky you. Any chance you can bring it to LCC??? If not, definitely bring a pic!

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    2. Ellen, you complimented me on the dress at the LCC banquet in Canada :-) . That was the black dress.

      Diana

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  15. My parents are from China and moved to the US in the early 1960's. Like many immigrants, they came with nothing. Mom was the one with the entrepeneurial spirit and ability to penny pinch. She managed to save and borrow enough for a duplex. They lived in one side, rented the other and worked cooking and cleaning. Over time they managed to purchase a couple more rental properties. It was not always easy but it helped us with college costs and living comfortably. Not shabby from how it all began.

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    1. So impressed! Purchasing property was definitely the way to go. I'm in awe of how hard immigrants like your mom worked and the success they found.

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  16. I love the stories about your family, Ellen!

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  17. Your photos are wonderful! My paternal and maternal grandparents all were from Eastern Europe and spoke only Yiddish. They arrived with nothing and worked to survive. Both grandfathers whom I never met died very young and left young widows with young families who had to survive on their own. My grandmother was a great cook and baker and during summers worked at summer camps. My parents were brought up during the depression and had very little but worked in order to to become successful and provide for their family. I realize now that I did not appreciate what they went through when they were younger.

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    1. Your family sounds like the Jewish side of my family. They came to NY in the 1880s and were actually quite successful until the Depression and bad management wiped out everything. My grandfather disappeared in 1933. He was low-level Jewish mob. But that's for another book. My dad used to tell me about the kucchalanes (sp)in the Catskills. The precursors to the resorts like Grossingers. I wonder if your grandmother worked at one of those, too.

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  18. This sounds so like my kind of book!all of my grandparents came from different corners of what was then the vast Russian Empire and I've always been fascinated by who those to the US and how they manage their new lives. I've blogged about it and it comes in up in several of my own books, too. NY's Tenement Museum tells some of those stories, old and news, very movingly. My own most infuential forbear? My maternal grandmother came to the US at 11, the only one of my grandparents to have some school here, but only 5 years. She spoke English with no accent, followed politics, watched educational tv, read biographies and lived downstairs from us for some of my childhood. Her idols were Elanor Roosevelt and Golda Meir so that tells you a lot! She died way too young but never forgotten

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    1. Triss, love your books! AND the Tenement Museum. We took our daughter there in second grade when she was doing a genealogy project for school. My Jewish ancestors had a shop on lower Broadway. We went to an address we had, and it had become a Chinese temple.

      Your grandmother sounds like an amazing woman.

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  19. So captivating and fascinating to hear your stories. The ancestors are important to know about and to impart their lives to this generation. Harsh and difficult is what my grandparents had to live through and make a living for their families. Dying young and having little children to bring up. I knew too little and wish that I had shown an interest in them. After leaving Europe for a better life in North America their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren have forgotten them.

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    1. I agree. I used to ask my grandmothers about their pasts because I was interested, even as a kid. Nonna didn't talk about it much. I think it was hard because of the language barrier. Grandma on my Jewish side told me great stories but her life took a hard turn and I think it was painful to talk about the past.

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  20. I love your family story, Ellen. I was just listening to NPR yesterday and On Point had a great show with social scientists who use large date sets to show that yes, immigrants coming to this country enrich their communities, assimilate, and - most interesting to my ears - their children often achieve more than the kids of American-born parents of the same generation.

    Also, I think your mom's cousin Antoinette needs to appear in your Catering Hall Mystery series, because she is stylin'!

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    1. Agreed, Julia. Lol re: Antoinette! She was married to Ralph, one of the cousins-by-marriage who ran the catering halls that inspired me. Sadly, Antoinette passed away young. She was only 41. I'm so glad she got to enjoy special times with my mom before that.

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  21. "Mom used to sing me an old Orsognese song that went “Le donne di Orsogna sono le piĆ¹ belle.” Translation: the women of Orsogna are the prettiest. They’re also the smartest, most resourceful women around, and I am so proud to share their genes and history. By the way, “Maria D"

    This is cut off on my computer.

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    1. I know,it's cut off on mine too! The last line is "By the way, “Maria DiRico,” my pen name, was Nonna’s maiden name. Viva le donne di Orsogna!"

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  22. Ellen--oops, Maria!--I love your family stories! I'm envious, because my parents either didn't know or weren't interested and I never learned anything about where either side of the family came from. From DNA testing and a little research I've learned that they were English/French and both sides probably came through the Protestant migrations through Kentucky and Tennessee.

    Your book sounds wonderful! Can you tell us a bit more about the story?

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    1. Sure! Mia Carina has moved back home to Queens, where her father Ravello, a capo with the Boldoni crime family, has been tasked with running a rundown banquet hall that was surrendered to him by a broke gambler. Mia’s always wanted her father to go straight and she’s determined to help him run the place, with its view of Flushing Bay and the LaGuardia Airport runway, as a legitimate business. Then a body pops up – or technically, doesn’t pop up from a jump-out cake at a bachelor party. Who knew working for a catering hall could be as dangerous as working for the Mob?

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    2. It's so much fun to write this series! But I need to schedule a "research" trip to La Guli Pastry Shop on my next trip home, lol.

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    3. Ellen, what fun! And I meant to say, have you seen chef Marcus Samuelson's series, No Passport Required? He visits different immigrant communities all over the country and it is fascinating listening to people's stories and learning about their food and culture. The series is on PBS but may also be available on Amazon. Highly recommend!

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    4. I haven't! I have to watch that. I saw some of Anthony Bourdain's show. Ironically, the speaker at Festa Delle Donne last year was his producer. It wasn't long after his death. She's the daughter of one of my mom's pisane friends, and her career has been inspirational. She literally tracked down Bourdain after reading his book, shot some video to pitch as a series, and the rest is history.

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  23. Congratulations on your new series! I love your Plantation series and hope there are more to come in that series.

    My mother's parents both came from Poland in the early 1900's and my father's mother came from the Netherlands and his father came from Prussia also in the early 1900's. We still cook a lot of German and Polish food and have have German and Polish traditions especially around the holidays.

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    1. Thanks so much, and yes! MURDER IN THE BAYOU BONEYARD launches Sept. 8 and I'm working on the 7th book in the series as we speak.

      What an interesting background. I love German food. I bet your traditions are wonderful!

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  24. Ellen, I *love* your Cajun mysteries and this new series sounds irresistible.

    Both of my parents were writers - between the genes and the atmosphere they created at home, becoming a writer felt somewhat inevitable. So of course, for many years I was NOT. I have no idea about my grandparents, whether they had a literary bent. Russian immigrants, they lived in the Bronx and the Upper West Side. I knew only one grandmother, and she spoke very little English and I can't remember there being books in her house. I wish I'd been more curious about who she was an what her experience had been.

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    1. Hallie, your compliment means the world to me! You know how important your writing is to me. (And sorry to end on two "to me's.")

      I think we all wish we'd ask more questions of our grandparents. But what I realize looking back is that sometimes they didn't want to talk about the past. I don't believe my nonna ever saw her parents again after she came to Italy. On the Jewish side, my grandmother's family lost all their money, her husband literally disappeared, and she wound a single mother working as a dietician at an old age home and then as a sales clerk. They told what stories they could.

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  25. What a fascinating backstory of your family and the strong women in it, Ellen. Feeling that family history as a part of you is empowering and reassuring. I know you must be so proud to use your nonna's name for your wonderful new series. Here Comes the Body is a great title, and as always, you have a great cover, too.

    The connection I have to my father's side of the family, the Boones, is a strong one. With Daniel Boone being my Great-great-great-great uncle and his brother Edward being my Great-great-great grandfather, I have always gained strength from the history of my family. I usually include my maiden name now with my married, Kathy Boone Reel, because I am proud to come from a history of pioneers.

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    1. OMG, Kathy, I love this!! To know you're a descendant of Daniel Boone - how fascinating is that?! I wrote a play set in Eastern KY and drove through the area by myself. Wow. We'll have to talk about that sometime.

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    2. Yes, I'd love to spend time talking to you, Ellen, as I would love to know more about your family, too. And, I'd like to hear more about your play.

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  26. Ellen, I love the new book and I love your mom and her review of the book: "Apart from the murders..." is priceless! Congrats again on the new series!

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    1. Hi Vickie! Thank you so much. And LOVE your wonderful new mystery, MY FAIR LATTE!

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  27. I love that you're using her name! I think every word I write is influenced by the family I grew up in, not as overtly as your writing is, but it's always there, underneath. After a few books and stories, I figured out that family is the theme of my writing. All my characters have family--and family issues!

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    1. Same here! I didn't even realize that both my protagonists in my series live with their grandmothers until it was too late! But, oh well...

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  28. Fantastic and inspiring piece, Ellen! I absolutely love how you wove in your family history and the courage and tirelessness of these strong women. Congrats on the fabulous start of a great new series!!

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  29. Ellen, congratulations on your new series. I love the Cajun mysteries and am so happy to hear that there is another one coming out soon. Your new book sounds great, a little mob, a little food, any romance? I will definitely read it soon.

    My mother's family had been in NY for a really long time. On her father's side, Mom (born in 1919) was a 4th generation American, and she was really proud of that. Unfortunately, her father died when she was 14 and we never really knew anyone from his side of the family. Her mother was born in NY, too. That family came from Germany during the big migration of German Jews in the mid to late 1800's.

    My dad's family came from Russia and Poland to escape the pogroms and violence of that region in the early 20th Century. My grandfather, nick-named Zadel, left in order to avoid induction into the Tsar's army. They all had stories and we all listened and in some cases recorded them.

    The best story teller however, was my dad. He always had a million of them, stories from his childhood in a small Connecticut town, stories he'd heard about the old country from my grandparents, stories about his grandparents and other relatives, and jokes, too. I can remember many gatherings where children and adults alike would be doubled over with laughter from the accents he could do (anything European), the animal sounds (OMG he could do a horse whinny with the whistle). He just had the gift. We still have code words for some of Dad's best jokes that get us laughing to this day!

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    1. Judy, the Jewish side of my family immigrated to NY in the 1880s from Lithuania, we think. You're so lucky your family shared stories, especially those of your dad. What fabulous memories for you!

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  30. Congrats, my dear! Having already had the honor of getting to be a beta reader for Here Comes the Body, I can tell everyone that they are in for a real treat!

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    1. Thank you so much, darling Leslie - for all of that!

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  31. I love this story of the resilience of Italian women. My grandmother was the same way. She had am arranged marriage to my grandfather, and immigrated to America in 1921 not knowing any English and with a third grade education. She was the best cook I've ever known. I wish I could have known her better.

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    1. Autumn, was your mother's arranged marriage the result of what they called "kidnapping" or "robbing?" That was my grandmother's situation. The unmarried townspeople would take a passagiatta around the town square. The young women wore kerchiefs around their head and if a man pulled it off, he was claiming you for himself.

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  32. I was very touched by this post. Your family must be so proud of you, as you are of them. Congrats on the new series!

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    1. What a lovely thing to say. Thank you so much!

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  33. Both sets of my grandparents had a strong work ethic, ingenuity, and resilience through hard times. I try to follow their example.
    Heard a lot of good things about this book. Congrats on the new series!
    kozo8989@hotmail.com

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  34. Three quarters of my grandparents are of families that arrived in the new world prior to 1800, probably before 1776. The remaining quarter is my Grandpa Dez who is the first generation of his family born in the new world, his family is from Norway. Despite the fact my grandfather's owning their own businesses they were just my granddads. I did have a third grandmother and for the most part they were moms to their kids though my Grandma Jeanette worked as a photographer while her children grew. The one thing my grandparents taught me was family is important, more important than a social event. Known legacies, family life stories were taught but when I stop and think about them, they were people who lived through two wars, financial trials and came out on the other side with their families around them. Sometimes it wasn't pretty but they survived.

    Your new series sounds great. I'm looking forward to adding you to my bursting list of authors.

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    1. Deana, how interesting! Particularly your grandmother who worked as a photographer. I hope you have copies of photos she shot.

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  35. I'm coming to this way late, but I just wanted to add that my grandmother, whose education consisted of one year in the ungraded (ESL) class when she was 10-11, read constantly and voraciously, and despite coming to the US from Lithuania when she was 9, had no accent and sounded very educated. Alas, she never learned to punctuate, so when I was in college, I used to read her long letters, all one sentence, and figure out the punctuation as I did so. Gave me good training as an editor.

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    1. OMG, Ellen, I love this story! Thank you so much for sharing.

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