A New Book Cover

Once again I am launching a new book. This story is very dear to me because my great, great grandfather helped me write it. In 1849 during his journey across the country from Missouri to California on a wagon train, he kept a journal. It's kept under glass at the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, California. My Mother was able to get a copy of the the journal and I was able to use some of his experiences in my wagon train story. I hope he is smiling down on me and happy with what I accomplished with his help.

During the Civil War he turned his doctoring skill over to the war effort and his rank was Surgeon General. I love having such grand records from my ancestors to help me with my stories. His wife, my great, great grandmother is supposedly the first woman to be published in a magazine. Leave it to my Mother, she never gave up tracking down these stories and found them at the Sacramento State Library. Only because she was the great granddaughter was she able to get a copy of the seven stories. Because they are considered valuable, she wasn't able to touch them. The person in charge actually used instruments to lift and copy the stories. I was amazed to find some similarity between one of her stories and mine, some of the sentences almost word for word alike.

Meet my great, great grandfather Dr. Charles A. Kirkpatrick.