The Widows of Braxton County (30 page)

I’m a child of the 1960s and ’70s, so some of these ideals seemed very foreign to me. Also, my father died when I was an infant, and until Mom remarried five years later, I watched my mother do everything! She worked her entire life, slowing down only when she was in her late sixties. She could drive anything with wheels, be it tractor, truck, or car; can vegetables; hang wallpaper; plow a field; tend pigs. And the same hands that were strong enough to help my stepfather butcher an animal were gentle enough to dry all my childhood tears. Oh sure, she had definite ideas about what being ladylike meant and I heard the words “act like a lady” plenty of times growing up, but being a lady never stopped her from doing a job that needed to be done.

And after reading more about society’s expectations of women in the late 1890s, I realized that back then women like my mother had helped change those views about what a woman could or couldn’t do. They lobbied for the right to vote, the ability to receive a higher education, the opportunity to work outside of the home and earn their own wage.

But it wasn’t just women who sought change. In 1869, John Allen Campbell, the first governor of the Wyoming Territory, approved the first law in U.S. history explicitly giving women the right to vote. In 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention, Frederick Douglass signed the Declaration of Sentiments, which urged passage of national suffrage. Although when women’s suffrage came to a vote before the House of Representatives in 1918, the proposed amendment eventually failed in the Senate, many congressmen went to great lengths to cast their votes in favor of it. One congressman, at his wife’s request, left her side as she lay dying so he could support the bill’s passage. All of these people made a difference. These stories got my mind spinning. Who were these people? Where did they find their courage? What day-to-day challenges did they face that we can’t conceive of?

When I began creating the characters and plotline for
The Widows of Braxton County
, all this material was fermenting in my mind—the problems faced by women in the 1890s, the expectations placed on them by society, the example my mother set for me growing up, how the world has changed for young women today, and how some things
haven’t
changed. I wanted my character Hannah, who in my opinion is expected to achieve an unattainable level of perfection, to rail against the status quo and have the strength to fight against all odds. At the same time, I wanted Kate to be the opposite: a woman who has many more advantages and privileges than Hannah had in the 1890s but who, at the beginning of the story, is determined to play by the rules and do what is expected of her. It’s only through learning from her mistakes and dealing with tragedy that Kate is able to find her inner strength and become an instrument of change to help others, just as Hannah did in her time.

I hope that you, the reader, enjoyed Hannah’s and Kate’s journeys, and that you too will have a new appreciation of the real-life battles fought by the women and men who’ve gone before us. Their fight earned us many of the freedoms we now have, and personally I’m grateful that each of them chose to be “a voice not silenced.”

A Reading Group Guide

1. The Widows of Braxton County
   focuses on two central characters. In what ways do you think Kate’s life runs parallel to Hannah’s? How do their lives differ?
   
2. What is your first impression of Kate? Does it change by the end of the book? What impact do Doris and Rose have on your perception of Kate?
   
3. What is your impression of Hannah? Was there anything she could have done to change her life? Do you think that she ever loved her husband?
   
4. Do you believe the Krause family was cursed? If so, where did the curse originate? Discuss the difference between a curse and a haunting. Was the Krause home haunted, and if so, by whom? How much do you think that Trudy knew about her family’s history?
   
5. Did Trudy deliberately place the knife instrumental in Joe’s death in Kate’s vehicle? Did she want Kate blamed for his death?
   
6. Joe is incredibly attached to his mother. Was Joe’s attachment to Trudy justified? How do such strong attachments form?
   
7. In the beginning, Kate struggles to be the “perfect wife.” Why do you think it was so important to her to please both Joe and Trudy?
   
8. How does Kate’s relationship with her grandmother shape the other relationships in her life?
   
9. How does the quote “The Sins of the Father” resonate throughout the story?
   
10. Does Hannah’s stepson Joseph have any redeeming qualities? How was his personality shaped by growing up in an abusive household? Was there justice for the crimes that Joseph committed?
    
11. One act of violence, the murder of Jacob, has shaped many lives throughout the generations. How did it affect Hannah? Willie? Joseph? Essie? Rose?
    
12. In the end, did Hannah triumph over her adversaries? If she did, is it important for the townspeople to know?
    

Read on

More from Jess McConkey

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“Haunting, mysterious, and subtly romantic, this debut under Shirley Damsgaard’s pseudonym is inspirational and full of hope.”

—RTBookReviews.com

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Ophelia Jensen’s good witch granny Abigail revels in her paranormal powers. But Ophelia never asked for her bothersome psychic abilities— especially since they proved worthless when the thirtysomething librarian’s best friend Brian was murdered by a still-unknown assailant.

Now, five years later, another friend is gone, killed in almost identical fashion. Even dear old Abby isn’t safe, distracted as she is by her fight to prevent a massive mega-polluting pig-farming operation from invading their small Iowa town. And Ophelia can’t count on her snarling, scoffing nemesis, police detective Henry Comacho, to get the job done, so she’ll have to take matters into her own hands. Because a common thread to the crimes and a possible next victim are suddenly becoming troublingly apparent . . . Ophelia Jensen herself!

THE TROUBLE WITH WITCHES

Ophelia has always considered her psychic abilities an imposition, except for those times she’s been able to put her paranormal talents to good use— as when a friend asks her to help find a missing teenager. Unfortunately it means she and Abby, her kindly, canny sorceress granny, will be taking to the road to pursue the vanished girl in the wilds of Minnesota.

The signs are pointing toward the secluded new age research facility of Jason and Juliet Finch, who live with their troubled—and possibly matricidal—thirteen-year-old niece. A bizarre local murder that follows their arrival—along with the appearance of a mysterious Native American shaman— only emphasizes the urgency of Ophelia and Abby’s hunt, drawing them into a web of dark secrets and to the last place they’d ever wish to be: a cottage in the woods where true evil quite possibly resides.

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Small-town librarian Ophelia Jensen is finally starting to embrace her lot as one of the “chosen”—a psychic and folk magick practitioner, aka a witch. Expert loving guidance from her magickally adept grandmother Abby helps—and adopting Tink, an exceptionally talented teenage medium, has given Ophelia’s life new purpose . . . until a brutal murder clouds the sunshine of their days.