The
young-adult series, rooted in Ann Arbor, Michigan history, began with visits to
the Bentley and Clemments University libraries to uncover details about the
donors of stained-glass windows to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, built after
the Civil War but incorporated in 1824. One of the donors, Silas Douglas
attended the 1818 Maumee River signing of the Indian land distribution treaty
needed for the building of President Monroe’s Erie Canal. He copied the treaty
and the names of the natives from seven tribes into the permanent archives (now
housed in the Ann Arbor public library). Based on these facts, my book “North
Parish” follows fictitious consensus-building diplomats around the Great
Lakes to secure attendance at the 1818 Maumee Rapids powwow. (57
k)
In
the libraries’ white-glove-only visitor section, I found abstract indexes for
interesting diaries. Among them was the lonesome diary of a Lake Superior
lighthouse keeper. He diligently listed the passing ships and frightening
storms. “Floating Home” incorporates the 1841 romance between an
Irish-famine, female emigrant with a lighthouse keeper’s journey across the
Atlantic, up the Hudson, down the Erie Canal, to Fort Detroit and their final
destinies in Ann Arbor (56 k).
Among
the famous names of 1879 University of Michigan professors, the name Vaughan
appears in un-complimentary biographies. “Love’s Triumph” details the
1879 typhoid epidemic experienced by a young carpenter and an aspiring female
law student. (70 k).
