Sunday, December 28, 2014

SABBATH SNAPSHOT : author affini-TEA

This book review is a result of kinship.  Not quite consanguinity, but close. Consanguinity is the state of being from the same kinship through bloodline.
Garraway Refrow, a pseudonym for my great Aunt Anna Barr, is the author of Vivid Night. (1943) She was my great Aunt Ada Adams Mabry's sister-in-law,  to be confused with my Aunt Ada Mabry Adams, aka "Crazy Ada."
Thus affinity is the correct term for the connection---relationship by marriage or by ties other than those of blood relationality. Affinity is the reason for the book review---I want my "kids" to know this connection. I plan to share it with them with a cuppa affinity-TEA.

Actually, I had long forgotten about this book, which I received in my school-age years from my grandmother Gena Adams. She had a way of sending me books for every birthday. They arrived "wrapped" and sitting in the backseat of a cab----her chosen method of delivery. A little weird but unique and I still remember her method. The taxi driver would open the door, remove the gift and deposit the wrapped book on our front porch---as if the package had "life." In a way, books are like that---having a life that is different for each reader.

The book is behind glass, to keep pristine, now that I know my "relation" to the author. I like the idea of a "published" author being a part of my family tree, albeit by marriage.
However, I assume from the plot that my pious grandmother never read it. This very southern story revolves around a young woman and her child born "out of wed-lock."

"Vivian Knight, exquisite, cultured, American to the core, through the fighting blood of the Great Commander in Washington's army, and all the other armies American." (p. 54)
That sentence teems with a deep patriotism that Aunt Anna, aka "Stockade Annie" kept at the forefront of her own life as she ministered, until her dying days, to the soldiers of  Fort (Camp) Campbell, KY, which was built on the Mabry family land (1941). It is home to the only Air Assault division in the world. (101st airborne)
The story certainly reflects the "shame" of the time and the "home for unwed mothers" which would use the committee of "disposition of babies" to help the foundlings find homes. But it shines light on the love and devotion of this mother who strives to keep her baby at all costs.
A mother's cry can shake the throne of God, for the Son of a woman sits thereon. (p. 121)
When she loses her child, the pursuit of the privilege of motherhood begins and.......I don't want to spoil the story.....but I do like happy endings, and this one took a turn, which I found pleasing.