For anyone who has wondered, "if these walls could talk," the revelations are disclosed here in I Am The House, a unique tale told by an 1870s house and co-narrated by a Human House Empath. Beginning in the 1570s with the original Native American settlers of Long Island's North Fork, the story progresses through the American Revolution, through local milestones such as the building of the Railroad and national milestones such as the Great Depression, to the personal milestones marking the major characters' lives and their homes, and continues to a shocking development in the 1970s. Over a 400 years span, a series of powerfully drawn characters engage readers in exploring themes basic to our human condition such as: prevailing over adversity, navigating family dynamics, facing the challenges of preservation, finding the little joys in daily life, and intriguing insights about the relationship we have with our homes and their own housetories.
My articles on Victoriana have been published nationally and internationally. Distinguished in 1996 as one of the nation's finest educators, I contributed a pair of chapters to a book on teacher excellence. I helped edit and did some ghost writing for a pair of books on The Ansonia for The Campfire Network. As a young adult, I earned several awards for poetry and a limited membership in the Academy of American Poets. I visited Japan through a Fulbright, and was honored to be a torchbearer for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah. Now retired, I volunteer and write grants for two nonprofits. Over the course of forty years, my husband Robert and I, serial restorer-preservationists, have restored to the Period four residences: a small Oysterman's Cottage featured in a national magazine spread, a local Town Landmark, a grand mini-manse listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and a NYC Landmark Beaux Arts fin de siecle apartment.
