Mystery Agent TOMORROW!

Operation Awesome is hosting its second Mystery Agent one-line pitch contest!

Details will be on the OA blog tomorrow. In fact, the contest post is already written!

But you still have to wait until tomorrow. Buwahahaha!

It's kind of like how they finished filming all the Harry Potter films forever ago, but still make us wait a year between each one! LOL.

Oh, and Happy Halloween!

I'm not into sé·ances or anything fancy like that, but I do like to look up my ancestors in some of the many family history books I've been given over the years. Let's face it. There's something cool about these old black and white pictures.

Mary Field Garner Picture from Utah State History Digital Collections

From Sister Marcia Geilmann's mission blog:

Mary Field Garner, the last leaf, as she was the last living person to have personally known the prophet, Joseph Smith. She was about 10 years of age as they began the exodus. She told of her mother not having time to finish the bread she had started, so she put it in a pot, hung it along side the wagon and started on the journey. When they stopped for the night, then she baked the bread.

Mary Field Garner

"[My great-great-great grandmother] was born February 1, 1836 and died July 20, 1943. She lived to be 107 years of age. She was present at the meeting wherein the saints chose their next prophet after Joseph Smith's martyrdom. The baby in her mother's arms had dropped the tin cup she was playing with and as she bent down to retrieve it, she heard the voice of Joseph Smith as Brigham Young spoke. Looking up, she saw not the form of Brother Brigham, but of the former prophet and patriarch, Joseph Smith. Mary's mother was a woman of great faith and perseverance. In the cold winter months in her family's journey back to Nauvoo after the main body of saints had moved on west, she would cross frozen rivers, carrying the two youngest in her arms and bidding all the children to cling to her skirt so that if they should fall, not a one would be left to the torture of mobbers.

Throughout the endeavor to establish residency in the far west, Mary's mother and Mary herself underwent an interesting experience with a certain Indian Chief who took a fancy to Mary's long red hair, which fell in locks down her back. This same Chief followed Mary's camp of saints for days, checking in on Mary. One day Mary's mother hid her under the feather beds and when the Indian came to see her and found her gone, he asked of her whereabouts. Her mother told him that she was lost. He didn't accept this and searched every wagon in the camp including Mary's, but did not find her. At this, he left and they didn't see him for a long time until they had established residency in Utah. Then, this same Chief appeared at her door and asked Mary's mother to give Mary to him to wed. Mary's mother refused and bade him go away. He sat at their door for 3 days, at which time he offered Mary's mother many, many ponies, blankets and beads, saying that Mary would be his white squaw and queen of his tribe, and that all of his other squaws would be her servants. Mary's mother refused again, but it wasn't until Mary herself told him NO and to leave her alone that he left. She married William Garner Jr. in Slaterville, Utah in the year 1856."

And if she hadn't, I wouldn't have been born. There's something for all you sci-fi writers working on time travel books. ;)

Family histories are interesting nuggets, rarely complete, that tell us where we came from and how far we've come, sometimes because of the sacrifices and strength of those who came before us. That's why on the Day of the Dead, I like to think about Mary and other grandparents who lived and died, in another world completely, so that we could live in this one.


Michelle is talking about awesome, spooktacular first lines over at Operation Awesome, so trick-or-treat over there and wish her a Happy Halloween. :)

Also, give Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins a read. Witches, vamps, and demons, oh my! It's a perfect Halloween read for the 16 and over crowd. It had me up all night reading to find out how it ended. It's also about to be followed up with an awesome sequel: Demonglass.

Cover love!

And last but not least, the Operation Awesome orange owl now has a name...