A Quilt for Jenna
Authors: Patrick E. Craig
HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS
EUGENE, OREGON
Cover by Garborg Design Works, Savage, Minnesota
Cover photo © Chris Garborg; author photo by William CraigâCraig Propraphica
Published in association with the literary agency of the Steve Laube Agency, LLC, 5025 N. Central Ave., #635, Phoenix, Arizona 85912.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A QUILT FOR JENNA
Copyright © 2013 by Patrick E. Craig
Published by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Craig, Patrick E., 1947-
A quilt for Jenna / Patrick E. Craig.
p. cm.â(Apple Creek dreams series; bk. 1.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-5105-0 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7369-5106-7 (eBook)
1. QuiltmakersâFiction. 2. Traffic accidentsâFiction. 3. AmishâOhioâFiction.
4. FoundlingsâFiction. I. Title.
PS3603.R3554Q55 2013
813'.6âdc23
2012026072
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansâelectronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any otherâexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.
To my daughter Cheryl and my granddaughter Terra Lynn
To my wonderful wife, Judy, for her tireless proofing and editing work on the first six drafts of this book and her ceaseless prayer on its behalf.
To Dan Kline for his initial editing of this book, his great suggestions and input, and his invaluable friendship.
To Sue Tornai for keeping me in the active voice.
C
ONTENTS
Chapter Four: The Journey Begins
Chapter Thirteen: The Heart of the Beast
Chapter Fifteen: The Trouble with Reuben
Chapter Seventeen: A Quilt forâ¦
Chapter Eighteen: Hard Choices
Chapter Nineteen: Trials and Tests
Chapter Twenty-One: Into the Storm
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Battle of the Ridge
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Journey Home
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Decision
Chapter Twenty-Six: The Shadow of His Wings
Chapter Twenty-Seven:
Die Heilberührung
Chapter Twenty-Eight: When Johnny Comes Marching Home
Chapter Thirty-One: To Every Thing There Is a Season
Chapter Thirty-Three: A Test of Faith
Chapter Thirty-Four: Goodbye, My Darling Girl
Chapter Thirty-Five: Flight into Darkness
Chapter Thirty-Six: A Place to Hide
Chapter Thirty-Seven: A New Day
Chapter Thirty-Eight: To Seek and Save the Lost
Chapter Thirty-Nine: I Once Was Lostâ¦
Chapter Forty: â¦But Now I'm Found
A
PPLE
C
REEK IS A REAL PLACE
. It is a village set in the heart of Wayne County, Ohio, eleven miles from Dalton and ten miles from Wooster. It has real streets and real people.
Apple Creek and the surrounding area are home to a large Amish community and have been since the mid-1800s. Not far to the east lies Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where the Amish first settled in America in 1720.
I chose Apple Creek as the setting for
A Quilt for Jenna
while doing research on the Amish in Ohio and in particular on Amish quilt makers. Apple Creek, Dalton, and Wooster are known for the marvelous Amish quilts produced there. Dalton has one of the biggest quilting fairs in Ohio.
A town named Apple Creek was just too good to pass up as a location, so I started my story there. I used the actual streets and highways, the localities, and even local family names in
A Quilt for Jenna
even though all the characters are fictitious and not based on real people.
As I mentally planted myself in the heart of Apple Creek, the characters in the book began to spring out of the earth, fully grown, with lives and stories, joys and sorrows. The story was easy to write because it seemed as though I were reading someone's journal as I wrote it.
The more I explored Apple Creek, the more I realized how connected I was to the village. My great-great-grandfather, Anthony Rockhill, was born forty-nine miles from Apple Creek in Alliance, Ohio, in 1828. Apple Creek is eighty-five miles from the site of Fort Henry, West Virginia, on the Ohio River. Fort Henry was the site of Betty Zane's run for life during the British and Indian siege during the Revolutionary War in 1782. The book
Betty Zane
by Zane Grey was a childhood favorite and still has a place on my bookshelf.
As a child I poured over stories about Lewis Wetzel and Jonathan Zane and followed them through the trackless Ohio wilderness only a few miles from what would become the village of Apple Creek. Though I've never been there, I feel I know the area like the back of my hand. And so it was no coincidence that I came to choose Apple Creek. Though the characters in this book are fictional, they have become very real to me, as I hope they will become to you.
And by the way, the horrific storm in
A Quilt for Jenna
is also real. Historians have called it the Great Appalachian Storm or even the Blizzard of the Century. At the time, of course, the people who lived in the path of this monster didn't have a name for it. They just hunkered down and tried to endure it.
I hope the story of Jerusha Springer and her struggle to survive will touch a place in your heart as you read. Perhaps something of your own life will be changed for the better by the end of the book. So as I think about it, maybe it was coincidence that I chose Apple Creek. After all, coincidence is just God choosing to remain anonymous.
EDNESDAY
, N
OVEMBER
22, 1950
