My mother, Lois McIntyre Troutman, was a writer. After her husband took her to Nebraska to live on a farm in the wide open spaces, so different from the Appalachian Mountains of southwestern Virginia, she wrote letters to her parents describing the details of her life there. Her father once commented that receiving a letter from Lois was like reading National Geographic. She wrote volumes of letters to her parents, her siblings, her in-laws, her friends, and then to her children when we went off to college or married and moved to locations far from her. She wrote devotionals for her women’s group at her church. She wrote essays for her college classes. These are her stories, the ones she wrote before she lost her eyesight. Also included are notes her husband wrote for his grandchildren of his life growing up in Nebraska. These stories keep the memories alive.
Zola Joined: Sep-30-2020 |
Zola Troutman Noble researches, records, and writes family history. She earned her Master of Fine Arts in Writing in 2005 from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. A native of Nebraska with family ties in Virginia and North Carolina, she lived in Anderson, Indiana from 1982-2017 where she taught writing courses at Anderson University from 1988 until her retirement in 2012. Her writing has appeared in Highlights, Madison County Monthly, Missions, the Indianapolis Star, and The Smithfield Review. She writes a family history blog called Rattling Old Bones (http://rattlingoldbones.blogspot.com/ ). She now lives with her husband Myron in York, Pennsylvania where she enjoys the company of her children and grandchildren and the close proximity of many historic sites, including Gettysburg. She thanks God for His unfailing love revealed to her every day of her life.