What an impressive story. Your family memoir was so beautifully written and touching. You mentioned the Texas Troopers several times---but you have turned out to be a real trooper, too. Writing a book and carrying out all the research is a daunting task. I am so proud of what you have accomplished!
Love,
Anna Duterroil
"I relished every page of Cinderella's Daughter, the pictures as well! It is easy to understand where your own determination comes from. Thank you so much for sharing your mother's fascinating history in an eminently readable story."
~ Carol McCauley
"I have been to the Big Bend many times over the past 65 years, so I can relate to various things mentioned in this book. It is rough living in the Big Bend area in Brewster County. One must learn a new way of living, as did Jim Landrum, without many things that most people take for granted. I admire how Diane Garner brought her grandfather's (Jim Landrum) letters to his mother to life. Her grandfather struggled with having tuberculosis and being away from his family in Florida. With time, he learned to love that part of the country. I like how the story brings out the good and the rough times of living on the Rio Grande during the early part of the 1900s."
~ Fay
"Jim Landrum and all the people he knew who lived and died on both sides of the Rio Grande come to life in these letters. The courage and poignancy of Jim's life in the Big Bend is presented as only a granddaughter can. The resiliency, optimism, and resourcefulness of the American Pioneer spirit jump from the page - your heart will beat a little faster."
~ Roseanne Paddock
"I thoroughly enjoyed this book, a fascinating story of life in Big Bend, Texas at the turn of the last century, when it was still a frontier area. The characters are vivid and I got a sense of life as it must have been lived in west Texas at that time. The author's grandfather, who was forced by tuberculosis to leave his home in Florida, wrote wonderful, evocative letters home to his family. Through the letters, an intelligent, sensitive personality emerges, a man who made the best of his situation.
An educated man, he did well in the community and in time became the trading post manager, a justice of the peace, the postmaster and even a sort of medic for the area. He married a Mexican girl from a good family and soon they were expecting a child. Then things went wrong for him when he was unjustly accused of a crime. It was the time of the Mexican Revolution, and he subsequently joined Carranza's Constutionistas and rode into Mexico, where he disappeared. The story of how all this happened, and of what happened to his daughter and his descendants makes a really good read."
~ Pam Daniels
"I just this minute finished the book you wrote about your grandparents and mother. How it made my heart ache when, after reading letter after letter, and gaining a sense of the personality and character of your grandfather, to learn of the sudden cessation of correspondence, and its ultimate resolution with his disappearance. I had to write you immediately.
I trust, if at all possible, I can introduce you and your husband to my little family here in Metaire, and introduce you to my cousins who have living memory of Ivalee Bales and her descendants. My information is all second hand, inherited photographs and family information through my grandparents. You will recall that my grandmother, Pauline Bales, was Ivalee's oldest sister. I have much more information on their lives growing up in Bonham. I feel to be a bit of a detective piecing together the history and locating the living descendants of my extended family, who are spread all over the nation.
The book also re-energized me about my upcoming annual trip by train to Big Bend. I intend to share the tale of our little bit of common history with my brothers, and if possible, try again to visit and photograph more around Glenn Springs and La Noria. Did I mention, that as a fan of Big Bend in particular its history, but of Texana in general, that the content of your grandfather's letters made the people come to life, who beforehand I knew somewhat as two dimensional characters, having read considerably more about the Langfords, Smithers, and other pioneers of this beautiful country.
Sad to say, much has changed in Big Bend since 9/11. The border has closed and Boquillas, Mexico and San Vicente are practically ghost towns now, cut off from their former easy access to groceries and mail from across the river. I am told by the store operators at Cottonwood campground that only two families are left across the river, subsistence farmers, and since the clampdown, many have simply moved away never to return. On the Texas side, of course, with the opening of the National Park, most of the land has reverted to nature and the buildings have been, with a few exceptions, bulldozed or allowed to decay."
~ Tom Webb, Metairie, LA
