Everything Has It’s Time

I was tired, on that rainy October day of 2020 eight months into the pandemic laboring to finish up the Echoes From Catawba Volume three. Yes, I wanted to take advantage of being secluded in my home to write on Echoes three and possibly get started on Echoes four. I was in for a big surprise! My friends were saying, “I guess you are getting lots of writing done with being inside your home so much.” I understood the comment, but it was not accurate! With all that was going on and knowing not what to believe I found myself in an altered state of mind that stripped me of creative writing. I barely met the deadline to finish book three and get it to Tina for the publishing process.

The last article posed the question: Is this my last book? I knew with the state of America turning more worldly and less Godly, going into 2021 creativity could be side-tracked again. The obvious choice was to suspend my writing indefinitely and ask God to lead in the way I should go. I received blessed assurance from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes “To everything, there is a season, a time for every purpose under Heaven.” I had been there before to hear what King Solomon (alleged writer) had to say and found an answer in verse seven: A time to keep silence and a time to speak. Since speaking and writing are close kin, I felt this would be a good approach.

Having abandoned writing I began a season of rest, studying scripture and waiting on God. Things started to clear up like a veil of fog moving from a mountain revealing a new day and purpose. The clincher was when I received an email from Pat Carper in New Castle.  Having never met her, I did appreciate Pat reaching out with encouragement to be patient and the urge to write would return. Coming from an experienced writer her advice was well received. I made the decision to start on Echoes 4 this Spring and that is now about to happen as appointments for interviews and research are underway.

The obvious question is “what will be in volume four?” The starting point will be to write about what many folks (including me) call Lower Catawba, which extends into Botetourt County, but nonetheless is considered Catawba. After the Will and Louemma Garman family of 17 children there came an impactful family of Martins/Garman which had as its matriarch the firstborn of the Garman family, Gertrude Garman Damewood. It will be a story written along the lines of the Garman family in Echoes, volume one, my first book. For our Craig County neighbors, I will be doing a story on the Craig Healing Springs which features a girl who experienced this as a child growing up there. Two members of the Will and Louemma Garman family, John Garman and Lilian Garman will be featured.

Typically, we do 10-12 chapters and there will be several other stories about folks who have been on our list. We will reveal those in a later post on our website as we finalize interviews and research appointments.

Tina and I are excited about the continuation of writing and eventually, doing speaking engagements again. The response to our Catawba books has been great. Books can be purchased at our website: echoesfromcatawba.com,  The Emporium in New Castle which was recently re-stocked, The Salem Museum, and Amazon.com.