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HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: How many moments have you had in you life where your jaw drops, and you cannot believe what you're seeing?
Take two minutes or so now, and listen to this wonderful tale from the past of our dear Susan Van Kirk--whose fifth mystery, A Death At Tippett Pond, is brand new this summer!
Let Me Tell You a
Story
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| Susan Van Kirk |
I write mysteries
that center around the influence of history in the Midwest where I grew up. Galesburg,
Illinois, a town of 38,000 in the early 1950s, was where I discovered reading.
Each week I walked to the Galesburg Public Library with my mother, an avid
reader herself. It was built in 1901—a Carnegie library—and it had a massive,
double-wide marble staircase you faced when you walked in the front door. Part of
the floor in the second story was made of glass cubes that intrigued my
seven-year-old imagination.
But the best part of
“my library” was the children’s room, holding marvelous wonders, including a
doll house filled with miniature furniture and people. It drew me like a magnet.
The front was made of glass so I could only look. Simply peering in at the
various tiny miniatures each week was magical. I was in heaven. My mother had
to pry me away every visit.
In those days, my
father was managing the Drive-In Theatre several miles west of town. Our family
spent blissful evenings there in the summer, but one night I have never forgotten:
May 9, 1958. We were near the end of the movie, and people began getting out of
their cars and looking back toward the east. Eleven years old, I had no idea
what was happening. But then, in the inky darkness, I saw fire lighting up the
night sky.
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| Used with permission of the Galesburg Public Library |
Immediately, we
drove to town where we watched my beloved library, my cherished and second home,
engulfed in flames. Hundreds of people were milling behind barricades watching
the firemen struggling valiantly to save the building. The crowd was hushed,
staring in disbelief. Hardly anyone spoke, tears streaming down their faces. The
roof collapsed onto the second floor, and eventually the astonishing second
floor—filled with books and glass squares—fell into the ground floor.
They later
discovered an exhaust fan in the attic had caught fire. While 40,000 books were
salvaged—many water-damaged—the city lost 200,000 books worth half a million dollars.
But the most devastating losses of all were four letters signed by Abraham
Lincoln and valuable items from the history of the city and the genealogy data of
local families.
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| Used with permission of the Galesburg Register-Mail. |
Last week I
stopped at the replacement library, a modern structure sitting on the same site
as my old Carnegie building. On a whim, I stopped in the children’s room to see
what it looked like these days. In the middle of the room sat a dollhouse. It
seemed familiar. The librarian told me it was the original dollhouse, one of
the few things they had saved from the fire that night sixty-one years ago. I think
I may have gasped.
I checked it out,
fascinated. I saw the tiny rooms just as I remembered them, with the children’s
bedroom upstairs, their faithful rocking horse awaiting them. I gazed in
wonder, thinking about how my eyes had peered into these same tiny rooms so
long ago, decades before I grew up and had children and grandchildren of my
own. I touched the glass, the same invisible wall I had touched when I was five
or six, and suddenly I was back there in that library with my mom, and we were
looking at the perfect reproduction of a well-loved farm home of the 1950s, and
pointing out the marvelous miniatures we liked. I could almost hear my mother’s
voice.
It brought back a
tumbling jumble of happiness reliving those Saturday mornings when my parents
were still alive, and my world was smaller and quieter.
A very special
moment of grace, indeed.
And you? Have you
experienced a moment of grace recently?
HANK: Such a lovely question--and such a pleasant thing to ponder! Reds and Readers? (And Susan is giving a copy of her new book to one lucky commenter! Another moment of grace.)
Secrets long
buried surround the murder of teenage Melanie Tippitt. The daughter of a
wealthy family in a small town, her lifeless body was found floating in Tippitt
Pond in the summer of 1971. Six people were there that day, and one was
convicted of her murder. Case closed.
Now, forty-five years later, Beth Russell,
a freelance researcher and genealogist, is brought to the town by a lawyer who
believes Russell is the daughter of Melanie Tippitt and long-lost heir to the
Tippitt fortune. Soon Beth finds herself surrounded by people who want her gone
as soon as possible, people with a great deal to lose. The more they push the
more determined Beth is to discover the truth. The ghostly presence of Melanie
Tippitt, a stranger watching from the woods, and the discovery of secrets in
Tippitt House make for a suspense-filled investigation where what Beth discovers changes everything,
Susan Van Kirk lives at
the center of the universe—the Midwest—and writes during the ridiculously cold,
snowy, icy winters. Why leave the house and break something? Her Endurance
mysteries are humorous cozies about a retired school teacher in the small town
of Endurance who finds herself in the middle of murders. Her new series about
Beth Russell combines history and mystery in her debut, A Death at Tippitt Pond. Van Kirk taught for 44 years in high
school and college, raised three children, has low blood pressure (a miracle
after all that), and is blissfully retired. You can find out about her books at
www.susanvankirk.com
The color photo :Used with permission of the Galesburg Register-Mail. The black and white photo: Used with permission of the Galesburg Public Library
