Aunt Annie, as everyone in Linden called her, frequently tended those who were sick and under quarantine with a contagious disease, even when others in town wouldn’t go near them. She’d say, “God never punished anyone for doing good.” After her husband disappeared...
Many of the characters in the O’Shaughnessy Chronicles are closely based on my own family members. In the novels my mother, Laura Fitzsimons, and her sister, Alice, are respectively Catherine and Ruby O’Shaughnessy. “Ruby O’Shaughnessy. I Like that. Bold and vibrant.’...
I was only a boy, but I’d visit Great-Uncle Nick just to hear him talk. He was raised among the Cornishmen of Linden, Wisconsin, and he absorbed their habits and the Cornish linguistic variation of the English language. Uncle Nick was half-Irish and half-Cornish, but...
The following short story received a Nonfiction Honorable Mention in the 2021 Jade Ring Contest from the Wisconsin Writer’s Association “As far as memoir writing, it doesn’t get much better than this. This reviewer encourages the writer to continue to tell...
“Ruby shouted, ‘There she is,’ and pointed toward the engine. All eyes turned upward, and the waiting crowd emitted an audible gasp when they saw a young lady perched atop the coal tender. Gusta wore a fringed buckskin skirt and a red chenille shirt with a white...
Note: This article was written and previously posted before the Mitchell’s closed their hardware store in early 2020. In the O’Shaughnessy Chronicles, Mitchell Hardware is the inspiration for Mason’s Hardware. These award-winning books are available...
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If you like this you'll love the O'Shaughnessy Chronicles!
When a sibling unexpectedly inherits his grandfather’s dairy farm, Will O’Shaughnessy turns to selling Fords in rural, pre-World War I southwestern Wisconsin.
A richly wistful epic tale of a bygone era....Readers will yearn for more. ~ Midwest Book Review
Harold William Thorpe novels are now included on Goodreads! 