I was able to uncover much information about Bet and Ray. I went from zero to ninety thanks to Ancestry.com, Bet’s real family, Bing.com, and the Fields of Honor Database website.
Like Kenny in my story, and the only thing I share with him, I became a little obsessed with the scrapbook and what could have become of the young woman who created it. Her daughter, Cindy, told me that she hoped her mom, Betty, was guiding my hand as I wrote the story. That’s how I felt from the beginning, like I was led to that war-time scrapbook by an unseeing hand. That I could feel something from its pages. How Bet’s loving nature and fun personality transcended the years, coming out of the words and pictures from those black pages. It made this the most unique book I had ever had the pleasure to write.
Where ever you are, Ray and Bet, I know you are blessed and, as a result of that guiding hand, so am I for having gotten to know you.
Dennis Higgins
About the Author
Award winning author Dennis Higgins is a distant relative of Davy Crockett (King of the Wild Frontier). He has travelled the world over, collecting story ideas. As a native of Chicago, Illinois, Dennis Higgins has a passion for things that are gone but not forgotten, a romance with the past.
For him, time travel is the answer. If not for real, then in the pages of his books. He now lives in the Chicago suburbs with his lovely wife, his dog, and a couple of birds. Among his influences are: Richard Matheson, Jack Finny, Dean Koontz, Joan Wester Anderson, Peter S. Beagle, Michael Crichton, and Audrey Neffenegger.
Author of the Time Pilgrim series:
Katya and Cyrus Time Pilgrims, Almost Yesterday, and Tomorrow's Borrowed Trouble from Whiskey Creek Press, along with Pennies from Across the Veil. Also, two indie books, Parallel Roads (Lost on Route 66) and Steampunk Alice.
Quote: “I once had a passionate love affair with an Irish lass back in 1871 Chicago. We broke it off. It just wasn't our time.”
The Old Scrapbook Page 12