Spotlight: Her Side of History by Claudia J. Severin
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Author Claudia J. Severin took things into her own hands when her genealogy research seemed limiting. Follow her foremothers, four mothers plucked from her family tree. She reimagines the lives of ancestral families in this anthology. Ina, the tragic suffragette, traded her college degree and teaching career for a loving husband and children in the 1910s, in the shadow of the Great War, but things did not work out as she planned. Mary, a German immigrant, finds love with an Iowa farmer, and crosses the state in a covered wagon with his entire family to become a homesteader on the Nebraska plains in 1869. She didn’t know that Indian encounters, prairie fires and locusts would threaten her and her rapidly growing family. Nellie fell for the bad boy, the Good Time Charley who didn’t let a little thing like Prohibition stand in his way. She tries to control his drinking and spending, while supporting her family in times of calamity in the 1920s and 1930s traveling from Nebraska to Kansas and back again. Katie finds herself the sole heir to her father’s farm in southeastern Nebraska decades after the Homestead Act took most of the land ownership out of play. She enjoys playing the flirtatious games learned from her older half-sisters. But are her suitors interested in her or her inheritance?
Excerpt
Following my Foremother’s Footprints
July 1888
I could see him staring at my bare shoulders as the white fabric floated, when I moved up and down in the water. Hicke spotted a large branch protruding in the water, and grabbed onto it.
“Okay, this is better.” He seemed to assess the creek itself, once his fear of drowning subsided. “This is a pretty good creek, isn’t it? How far does it run in your daddy’s place?” He glanced over at the horses who had found themselves a shallow spot to wade and drink downstream from where we were.
“It goes quite a ways, I guess. It runs northwest from here into the Walkens’ farm.” I swam a little closer to where he had tethered himself on the branch. Suddenly something pulled me straight down beneath the surface, and I came up sputtering. He reached out and grabbed my hand.
“Katie, you okay? What happened?”
“I dunno, some kind of undercurrent I guess. There are holes all over under there, you have to be careful.” I held onto his hand, although I knew the danger was over. He was about ten inches away from me now.
His slicked-back dark hair started to get wavy as it dried. I studied the line on his forehead from his hat. He had similar lines where his sleeves ended. He spends a lot of time outdoors, but clearly not in a creek. His chin and jawline were prominent and it appeared he hadn’t had a shave for three, no maybe four days. He had kind eyes. They seemed to dance when he smiled like he was perpetually teasing. They looked sort of gray green, but maybe it was only the reflection of the water. They were focused on me now, and I couldn’t ask for more than that.
The sunlight that streamed through the trees was glistening on the water and I could feel its warmth. I closed my eyes and pushed my hair from my face.
“I must look a fright, soaking in this dirty water,” I mused, twisting a strand of hair.
“Not at all. I was thinking how winsome and natural you look. You’re not very shy. I mean most girls wouldn’t like getting all wet and muddy in the creek.”
I was pleased by the way he was ogling me, but I knew it was time to go back. His brother was probably ready to start for home. I already knew Wilt had a girlfriend named Sarah, so he ought to have figured something was going on. Getting out of the water was going to be a little awkward though. This cotton undergarment was nice and cool under my dress, but since it was wet now, it was likely to cling to my skin.
“Turn around now. I’m going to get out,” I requested. “When you want to get out, you should be able to walk right on the creek bed from here.”
I started for the bank as he turned away, but when I was about knee deep in the water, I glanced back to catch him peeking. He chuckled when I raced out of the water and back into the protection of the brush. I attempted to wring the water out of my clothing, shimmy back into my corset and put on my voluminous dress. By the time I had braided my wet hair, and put on my boots, he was already dressed and ready for the ride back. He didn’t say anything more that day, but I figured he didn’t need to.
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About the Author
Claudia Johnson Severin lives with her farmer husband on a southeastern Nebraska farm that was homesteaded in 1869 by her husband’s great-grandparents, a setting for a portion of her anthology. At one time, the farm was home to dairy cows and chickens, as well as children. The cows, chickens, and children have all moved on, along with her day job. She spent a year researching many branches of her family tree, but decided the facts she uncovered did not leave enough to the imagination. She applied imagination to the facts and came up with this book.
When she is not writing, she is constructing one-of-a-kind play structures for her grandchildren. She is a graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Journalism and a Cornhusker football fan.
