A Heritage of the Heart - Softcover

Kohart, Georgia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0970634803 ISBN 13: 9780970634801

Publisher: Heritage Heart Farm, 2001

Synopsis

Elizabeth Hudson is a capable and competent young woman. Her career as a registered nurse for a busy surgical practice has trained her to handle just about any situation. Anything except the death of her husband. After three years of burying herself in her work, she realizes that it's time to quit running from the pain of loss and face her grief. She returns to the Ohio countryside of her childhood for a brief vacation, knowing that making peace with the past will help her face the future. When driving up the lane to the "Old Brick," her family's ancestral home situated near the abandonded Miami and Erie Canal, Elizabeth has no idea just how far back in the past her journey is destined to take her.

Suddenly thrust into the year 1850 - the heyday of the Ohio canal era - her skills are put to the test as she learns to survive on the rugged Ohio frontier. Along the way Elizabeth comes to know and love the people who are at once her past and her future.

The Boisterous Ohio Canal Era Comes to Life in "A Heritage of the Heart" A horn blared and fine tenor voice sang out, “Hey-ey-ey! Lo-o-ock!” Staggering at the impact, Elizabeth stared as the long rope attached to the mules that had just passed by dipped into the canal briefly, then rose again. Her eyes followed the rope to the amazing sight of a boat, a canal boat! She stared as it drew even and glided slowly by. The long, low-riding vessel was constructed of wood and painted white with red trim. Curtains fluttered from windows replete with green shutters. A man in soiled, old-fashioned clothing, stood atop the little house at the rear. He leaned slightly on a large pole that was parallel with the deck. It was attached to a rudder at the water line. The steersman politely touched his hat to Elizabeth as the craft passed so closely she could have touched it with an outstretched hand.

As the Iron Horse stampeded across the untamed reaches of a brash young America, another era faded away as quickly as it had bloomed: the age of the Ohio canals. Ohio author, Georgia Kohart, breathes life into those almost forgotten days in her newly released title, A Heritage of the Heart. Desperate for employment, Irish and German immigrants migrated toward the Great Black Swamp, where they put in a 12-hour day for 30 cents and a tot of bad whiskey to ward off disease. The project, dubbed the “Irish Graveyard,” provided more than a mode of transportation and a means to ship products from the rich swamps of Ohio back east. It became a way of life. The rich history of the Miami and Erie Canal into woven into a young woman’s journey through love, loss and self-discovery in this time travel tale. The title contains many actual events and settings from canal history.

About this title

About the Author:

A large percentage of the 18,000 readers of the Defiance (Ohio) Crescent-News admit to an addiction to the Wednesday edition. Family members have publicly confessed to fighting over the front section of that paper in order to be the first to see what topic – from mail box bashings to the seventh-grade science fair to “40-something fashion” – is on the mind of writer Georgia Kohart. A features writer for the Crescent-News, she authors the popular weekly column "On My Mind."

Prior to joining the Crescent-News staff, Kohart penned a column, Over the Garden Gate, about the humorous aspects of family and rural life and the beauty of the changing seasons, for the Farmland News, a weekly agricultural paper distributed in the tri-state area of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. Her work has also appeared nationally in Country Woman magazine (Reiman Publications) and been published by the Associated Press.

Kohart’s recently published first novel, "A Heritage of the Heart," is a work of historical fiction set in the heyday of Ohio’s Miami and Erie Canal.

Kohart lives on a small farm in Paulding County, Ohio, with her husband, three daughters and a host of animals. She enjoys the outdoors, from herb gardening to wildlife. A rabid proponent of public libraries, Kohart credits much of her writing ability to easy access to libraries as a child. In addition to writing, Kohart is also an entertaining public speaker.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

"She tried to convince herself it was all a dream and everything that happened was just the product of a restless night. She could have believed that too, if it hadn't been for the old scrap of linen. Tattered and stained, with its uneven stitching and childish embroidery, she kept it hidden between the pages of a book."

About this edition

• Publisher: Heritage Heart Farm
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0970634803
• ISBN 13: 9780970634801
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 151