by Laura Frantz
Author Note
Since childhood I’ve been fascinated by the remarkable captivity narratives of Jemima Boone, Mary Ingles, Jenny Wiley, Mary Jemison, Susanna Hutchinson, Frances Slocum, Elizabeth Archer Renick, Mary Rowlandson, Regina Leininger, Simon Girty, the Ruddell brothers of Kentucky (one Ruddell descendant is a reader of my novels), and others. The women’s stories most intrigue me and led to the creation of Keturah Braam.
Researching these captivity stories led to a treasure trove of accounts involving those first settlers in western Virginia, now present-day West Virginia. Several scenes in this novel were inspired by the historical record, such as Jasper’s final fight in the field and Tessa’s serving a meal to the Indians. Much of this rich, even astonishing, frontier history has been buried and nearly lost to time. An Uncommon Woman is a tribute to those unflinching souls who risked so much in so dangerous a region. Their courage, fortitude, and faith are not forgotten.
Many sources were of help to me when writing this novel, particularly the Diary of David Zeisberger: A Moravian Missionary Among the Indians of Ohio. Zeisberger and fellow missionaries, including John Heckewelder and other missions-minded men and women, had an extraordinary ministry among the tribes in their reach. Of special note is White into Red: A Study of the Assimilation of White Persons Captured by Indians by J. Norman Heard.
Writing a book is always an education for the author. I quickly became immersed in the colorful world of the Lenape, also known as the Delaware tribe of Indians. While researching, I came across an account by the Florentine navigator Verrazano, who encountered the Lenape in 1524 along the East Coast before white contact and disease took a toll: “These people are the most beautiful and have the most civil customs that we have found on this voyage. They are taller than we are, they are a bronze color, some tending more towards whiteness, others to a tawny color; the face is clean-cut, the hair is long, and their manner is sweet and gentle, very like that of the ancients. They have all the proportions belonging to any well built men. Their women are just as shapely and beautiful; very gracious, of attractive manner and pleasant appearance.”1
Several dialects were originally spoken among the Lenape in addition to Munsee and Unami. The Lenape Talking Dictionary (http://www.talk-lenape.org) includes audio that allows one to hear their language firsthand. Native languages are especially complex, and any errors within this novel are mine and unintentional.
Often it is not till the end of a book that I grasp what the book is truly about. While writing, the theme of friendship stayed steadfast. Though Keturah Braam is not the heroine in the novel, she could be. Keturah is an uncommon woman and an uncommon friend. Her character is based on this beautiful passage from the commentaries of Matthew Henry, an English minister who lived in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: “Friends must be constant to each other at all times. That is not true friendship which is not constant; it will be so if it be sincere and actuated by a good principle. Those that are fanciful or selfish in their friendship will love no longer than their humour is pleased and their interest served, and therefore their affections turn with the wind and change with the weather. Swallow-friends, that fly to you in summer, but are gone in winter; such friends there is no loss of. But if the friendship be prudent, generous, and cordial, if I love my friend because he is wise, and virtuous, and good, as long as he continues so, though he fall into poverty and disgrace, still I shall love him. Christ is a friend that loves at all times and we must so love him. Relations must in a special manner be careful and tender of one another in affliction . . . A friend that loves at all times is born (that is, becomes) a brother in adversity, and is so to be valued.”2
1. Fred N. Brown, Rediscovering Vinland: Evidence of Ancient Viking Presence in America (iUniverse, Inc., 2007), 126.
2. Matthew Henry, An Exposition of the Old and New Testament: Wherein Each Chapter Is Summed Up in Its Contents: Job–Solomon’s Song (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1839).
Laura Frantz is a Christy Award winner and the ECPA bestselling author of eleven historical novels, including The Frontiersman’s Daughter, Courting Morrow Little, The Colonel’s Lady, and The Lacemaker. When not reading and writing, she loves to garden, take long walks, listen to music, and travel. She is the proud mom of an American soldier and a career firefighter. When not at home in Kentucky, she and her husband live in Washington State. Learn more at www.laurafrantz.net.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Endorsements
Books by Laura Frantz
Title Page
Copyright Page
Epigraph
Contents
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Excerpt from The Frontierman’s Daughter
Acknowledgments
Author Note
About the Author
Back Ads
Back Cover
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