Melissa Mackie Brown is the great great niece of Bessie Braxton, known to family as B.B. As a child, she spent many a wonder-filled afternoon in her grandmother's attic in the company of dusty antiques and long forgotten objects. Years later when she was finally granted permission to open B.B.'s old steamer trunk, she found treasures from yesteryear inside, not the least of which were these letters, well hidden in a secret compartment.

Melissa lives in Granite Falls, NC with her husband and youngest daughter.