Lydia Ross McGee is the main character in my new book, She Left The Babies in the Bed. She and I were born about 100 years apart in the same county in rural central Kentucky. As my father would want me to quickly point out, we are not mountain people, and I suppose I should add that we were not horse people either. Our forebears were decent God fearing, hard-working Scottish farmers that traveled down the Wilderness Road not long after Daniel Boone. They first came with mule and ox through the Cumberland Gap, then the rest of the family a bit later by flatboat down the Ohio. The land was a Paradise flowing with milk and honey, husbanded for thousands of years by primitives that the invaders gave no thought to arrogantly brushing aside. My Scottish forebears were what the Bible refers to as a stiff necked people. That is a term I always associated in a literal way with my father who suffered from a type of arthritis that made it difficult for him to move his head easily. When I was older and realized the phrase was meant in a figurative way, I found it still worked for my father.
The first of our kin to travel down the Ohio River from Virginia brought slaves with them. I know the slaves were later freed, but I do not surmise it was from any high mindedness, but rather they based the decision solely on economics. In my story I try to put the very human face on how slavery warped our country, especially during the aftermath of the civil war. You may have heard that in Kentucky it was called “the war of brother’s blood”. This is not a book about that but neither does it turn away from the issue.
One thing I know about my family from the earliest days is they put a high value on education, and with education often comes enlightenment. Unfortunately enlightenment usually walks hand in hand with alienation, like Adam and Eva discovered in the Garden. During my first semester in College I made the decision to take a bite of the apple rather than living my life naked and ignorant. I have no regrets. Far from being man’s downfall, I realized that Eve was actually the vehicle God used to make us fully human.
It has been observed that every book an author writes is more or less autobiographical. Lydia is not me of course, but at the same time I do believe if I had lived in her age and had her challenges, I might well have reacted in the same way. I love her passion, her ability to look beyond appearances, and her constant desire to do what is right, to make an impact on the world. Most of all though I love her strength in the face of adversity, and the fearlessness that it took to walk away from what her friends and family believed was a perfect life.
We often read stories about people who conquered impossible odds to achieve great things. This is not that story. Lydia is a woman who faced those impossible odds and ultimately failed to realize her dreams. Despite missing that mark, do not think for a minute that she wants your pity. Her story is about what she gained along the way and the example she left for all women who came after her. One thing for sure that Lydia and I have in common is living a life filled to the brim with joy and laughter, pain and sorrow. A life well lived is after all the best revenge.
