Woven Patches

by Susan Molina

Overview

The old Taite Plantation was built up-bank from the Ogeechee River, about twenty-five miles outside of Savannah, Georgia. By the end of the Civil War, the grand old place was just a skeleton of what it once had been. The fields were dry and empty, slave shacks were deserted, and old Taite had died just as his crops had. All that remained of the grand old place was the Negro cemetery and fifty or so old two-room shacks that held the haunting story of those who'd lived and died within their walls.
Libby Pace was brought as a small child to one of those old slave shacks and her daddy, just as others before him, built his own home on former slave land. The new land owners, just poor and dirt poor whites, named their community the Patch.
Libby tells the story of her life and those around her; such as the old Biddie sisters, the Pritchet's,the Justice's and Tater Johnson- a Negro peddler who came into her life and changed it forever as the daily lives of those who live within the Patch, become woven together and form a family cummnunity of neighbor helping neighbor.
Libby, always the teacher in life, finds through Tater Johnson, as she teaches him to read and write, he has far more to teach her of love and friendship not found in her books.
Woven Patches, the first book in a series, details hardships and stories of a community who cling to the Old South as the new one emerges. Laughter and tears blend in the reading of Woven Patches as Libby recalls a most "amazin' and full" life.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940044371361
Publisher:	Susan Molina
Publication date:	03/10/2013
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	894 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, I struggled as a child to learn to read. Set apart from others in my class, my teacher with patience and kindness, never gave up or made me feel stupid in my stuggle to understand how the confusing lines and curves before me, made up words. Reading opened up a world for me I could escape to day after day, as I lived the life of an abused child. As most writers will tell you, the passion for reading, led quite naturally to the urge to write and have your own say. But I didn't become an author until later in my life as I concentrated most of my writing to research and reports on child abuse- devoting much of my life to giving a voice to those without one. In 2003 I wrote, "I'm Not Sybil". It was my own story of childhood abuse and trauma that came from the depths of a pain I had not shared outside of therapy. The purpose of the book was to connect with others who like me, remained silent and damaged, hoping the world would not see since we viewed our secrets as shameful. Woven Patches came to me as easy as breathing or smelling the ocean, since I'd been haunted all my life by the racist world I was raised in, but could not understand. My memories of a little boy I shared a hospital room with at the age of seven never left me and his friendship and kindness to me was something I longed to thank him for but never could thoughout my life. I often thought what a wise and special person he was at such a young age, that in spite of my mother's racist fit in the hall outside our door calling him "Nigger" to the Doctor, he was able to look at me and not judge us all by the words of one. The year was 1959, and although some progress has been made, it has not been nearly enough and for those who suffer the cruelty and ignorance of the effects of racism, change is far too long overdue. Woven Patches is the first book in a series that is meant to thank that little boy for his kindness and compassion shown to me and I hope the angry words he heard that day, were not repeated so often in his life that he gave up hope, as Dr. King told us, "the day would come when we would judge others not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character".