This week, we're pleased to welcome author JENNIFER BORT YACOVISSI with her latest release, UP THE HILL TO HOME. Join us again on Sunday for an author interview, with more details about the story behind the story. One lucky visitor will get a free copy of Up The Hill To Home. Be sure to leave your email address in the comments of today's post or Sunday's author interview for a chance to win. Winner(s) are contacted privately by email. Here's the blurb.
History conspires to make us who we are.
History conspires to make us who we are.
Every town, every city, is built by everyday people, and Washington, D.C. is no exception. Anonymous, hard-working women and men form the backbone of the place their families call home: strong women like Mary Miller, who held her family together during the Civil War; Emma Beck, an inventor, career woman, and devoted mother; and Lillie Voith, whose dream of a large family was fulfilled by a tribe of nine children. They are matched by equally strong men, like Charley Beck, whose humor and wisdom served equally as glue and lubricant.
These are my ancestors, and Up the Hill to Home tells their story over most of a century, as their faith and love, home and family, and strength of character contributed to building the nation’s capital, their hometown.
Praise for Up The Hill To Home
"Beautifully and lovingly written, this sweet story is well researched . . . a Perfect 10” --Romance Reviews Today
"Yacovissi has planned her book carefully, and the result is nothing short of remarkable." --Curled up with a Good Book
" . . . a strong, serene, uplifting debut novel . . . satisfies the heart but also pleases the mind." -- Bryan Crockett, Ph.D., author of Love's Alchemy: A John Donne Mystery
" . . . quietly compelling . . . This is the book you will carry around with you . . . " -- Rafael Alvarez, author of Tales from the Holy Land
**An Excerpt from Up The Hill To Home**
Lillie stands at
the top of the cellar stairs feeling for the light switch, which is
just out of convenient arm’s reach. When Charley Beck makes the
conversion from gaslight to electric—what, almost ten years ago
now?—the work crew includes one tall gangly fellow who installs the
box in a spot that’s just right for him and his rangy relatives. In
this more compactly built household, folks have stumbled on the steps
more than once trying to find that switch.
Lillie remembers
herself as a little girl being wary of the cellar. Dank, with low
ceilings, it holds more dark corners than she can keep an eye on
during errands to bring up canned peaches or green beans. She can
clearly picture herself creeping down the steps, scanning for signs
of movement, even then knowing that whatever is down there will hold
still, until she is fully in the trap, before springing it closed.
Pausing near the bottom step, she would take a deep breath, and then
dash for the shelves, grabbing what she’d been sent for and
scrambling back up the steps, propelling herself with a little shriek
into the kitchen, triumphant once again in her escape. Charley would
look from behind his paper and say, “Back again so soon?” and
Emma, accepting the jar of peaches, would tell her, “Darling, you
shouldn’t scare yourself like that. It’s just the cellar,” and
then Charley again, “Yep, we haven’t lost a child down there in
years,” and Mary or Emma or both would scold him for teasing her.
Maybe, Lillie thinks now, her young self enjoyed manufacturing that
fleeting sense of danger, knowing that the rest of her world was so
dependably safe.
This morning she is
thinking of her childhood, of all of their collective childhoods and
lifetimes, arranged and safeguarded in the trunk that again sits open
next to the parlor secretary. She’s taking advantage of the empty
house and the few moments to herself, over hot tea and soda crackers,
to dip in among the letters and photographs, diaries, and other
treasures. Any keepsake she retrieves, words or image, she already
knows by heart, and part of the sweetness is enjoying the layers of
memories each item has itself accreted over the years.
There are only a
few minutes to sit, though, and when the tea is drained, it’s time
to start the day in earnest. Her nausea is keeping her home while the
rest of the family attends Mass; she’s had to clench her teeth and
breathe hard as she marshals the children into readiness. But the
housework never gets done just by wishing, so she takes the teacup
and crackers into the kitchen and then steps out onto the spring
porch for the washing machine.
In its off hours,
the Easy Wash stays out of the way tucked into its own designated
corner of the porch, near the big canning stove. When it’s laundry
time, though, the washer needs to be wrangled from the porch into the
kitchen, a tricky maneuver that requires both muscle and
coordination. The spring porch is an addition onto the back of the
house, and it encloses the original concrete steps that lead from the
back door. There never was a railing, but there’s a gentle slope
meant to shed rainwater. With just enough space between the back of
the house and the top of the steps to roll the washing machine, it’s
crucial not to miss that corner with the outside wheel, or the Easy
Wash takes a header down the steps and just as likely takes the
hapless pilot with it. Lillie gets enough momentum up to carry the
washer across the threshold into the kitchen. She rolls it into place
next to the sink and is just about to connect the hose to the faucet
when she thinks to double check the water temperature. She opens the
hot side and waits a moment, then another. Cold. A disappointed groan
deflates her shoulders; in the rush to get everyone off to church, no
one got the task to run down and turn on the water heater. Her hopes
of getting at least one load of laundry done before breakfast
evaporate. Now she rolls the Easy Wash back out to its corner of the
porch, this time needing to check it from picking up too much speed
on the downslope. There’s nothing for it but to fit in an extra
load or two between breakfast and dinner. In a household of thirteen,
staying ahead of the laundry pile—washing, wringing, hauling,
hanging, plucking, ironing, folding, putting away—is a nearly
continuous activity.
Which is why Lillie
is looking for the light switch, so she can make the trip into the
cellar and belatedly turn on the water heater in time to have
post-breakfast hot water. But her mind, wayward this morning, marches
past laundry and breakfast and right back to the trunk in the parlor.
Over the course of
nine pregnancies, Lillie develops her own little rituals in preparing
for a new baby’s arrival into the family. One of the first things
she does is to have Ferd go up into the attic and bring down her
memory box. In fact, she sometimes breaks the happy news to him by
smiling and simply saying, “It’s time to get the box again.”
For his part, Ferd responds with some combination of a smile or
laugh, a kiss, and a sweeping, feet-off-the-floor embrace before he
heads to the attic. How funny to think that little more than a month
ago she catches her reflection in the parlor mirror and stops for a
moment, Tommy heavy on her hip, Bernie and Dorothy combatively
playing keep-away on either side of her. As she fingers a streak of
gray in her hair, she says to no one in particular, “Look at how
old I’m getting! It’s sad to think that soon I won’t be able to
have any more babies.” And here she is, already starting through
the box once again.
About the Author
