A 4th generation Californian, I grew up in Alhambra with aching lungs from the summer smog. I went to Catholic schools in the days of the nuns wearing habits. They had EVERYTHING in their huge pockets including scissors and smelling salts, which Sr. Erminold actually used on me when I fainted at a piano recital! I graduated from UC Irvine and became a math teacher. While raising my kids, I lived in a beautiful home in San Clemente with a view of the ocean. After getting a horse, I moved to Oregon to have room for him. Horses don't fit well on a cul-de-sac in Orange County. I am now married to a man with 8 children! We have 10 total and 22 grandchildren. We live in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains where it truly seems to rain for 9 months straight, but there is no smog. I am now retired & enjoy the piano, genealogy, grandkids, and writing.The Seamstress of Jamestown was my first book, a novel, followed by a memoir of my true experience of falling in a well & the amazing rescue.