"Crestmont" by Holly Weiss

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

Today's Wild Card author is:

Holly Weiss

and the book:

Crestmont

Star Publish (April 1, 2010)

***Special thanks to Holly Weiss for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Holly Weiss is a vocal instructor, retired professional singer and a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. A polio survivor, she lives in upstate New York with her husband. Crestmont is her first novel.


Visit the author's website.






Product Details:

List Price: $18.95
Paperback: 340 pages
Publisher: Star Publish (April 1, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1935188100
ISBN-13: 978-1935188100

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

En route to Eagles Mere

1925



People buzzed around the Allentown train station the next day, stopping only to check departure times or to collect their children and suitcases. Gracie bought her ticket, hurriedly counting the rest of the money in her purse. Selecting a magazine called Time from the newsstand next to the ticket counter she leafed through it, lingering over an article about President Coolidge.

“Watch it, Missy,” growled a man pushing a huge steamer trunk on a dolly. She jumped out of the way and hastily handed the vendor the money for the magazine and a Milky Way candy bar. Thinking she might feel less overwhelmed outside the station, she checked the board for the departing platform for the Wilkes-Barre train and dodged her way out of the terminal.

On the platform, people were crammed into each available seat, but quickly rose to board when the train to Philadelphia was announced. Gracie sat down alone, set her red suitcase between her legs, and wolfed down the candy bar. She glanced distractedly at the cover of the magazine, realizing she hated the news and politics, but instructed herself to read it on the train to Wilkes-Barre so she could be better informed.

Ducking her head nervously when people filtered in to catch the next train, Gracie spied a book someone had abandoned called Sister Carrie. Quickly, she snatched if off the bench and browsed through it. The main character was a girl who wanted to go to Chicago and be a famous actress. Excited now that she had a friend with a similar goal to keep her company; she put it in her suitcase just as the conductor called “All aboard!” Nervously climbing the steep steps onto the train, she settled into a brown leather seat and opened the Time magazine. She tried to read, but remorse gnawed at her concentration like a woodpecker hammering her skull.

“Ne-e-xt stop, Wilkes Ba-a-are.” Clutching her red suitcase, Gracie stepped off the train with an unsettling combination of anticipation and fear. After consulting a man in a maroon uniform with a name tag on his breast pocket, she found the east entrance of the train station where she was to meet the Crestmont car. The clock on the wall said 10:45. Sitting on a bench in the sun, she nervously paged through her magazine while she waited.

A huge black Buick Touring Car pulled up to the curb with “The Crestmont Inn” painted on the side in yellow letters. A spindly man in his mid twenties climbed out. He was impeccably dressed in gray and black pinstriped trousers and a gray jacket. Gracie guessed the yellow of his tie had been chosen to match the lettering on the car. He was so skinny that she giggled, imagining herself pushing him over with one finger. He had a very prominent Adam’s apple, a broad forehead and a face that narrowed into a pointy chin.

Waving to someone behind her on the tracks, he shouted, “Dorothy, still keeping those students of yours in line?” His wide smile made Gracie relax a bit.

Shyly, she stepped forward. “Hello, my name is Gracie Antes. Is this the shuttle to the Crestmont Inn?”

“You must be the new girl.” He stuck out a bony hand. “I’m PT, driver, bowling alley attendant and gofer for Mr. Woods, Crestmont’s owner. Hop in.”

“Well, I don’t know. I mean, my interview is this afternoon. Will we make it on time?”

“Yup.” Feeling like she had been given an order, Gracie slid into the middle seat of the car.

The generously proportioned middle-aged woman he had called Dorothy ran from the platform to the car, straw hat flopping, struggling with a suitcase and hatbox. She threw her free arm around PT and kissed him loudly on the cheek. “Oh, my word, if it isn’t PT. Isn’t it a long time between summers?” He stashed her suitcase in the trunk along with Gracie’s, and Dorothy slid into the passenger seat in the front.

A sickeningly sweet odor of roses filled the car. Gracie discretely wound her window down a few inches to let in some air.

“I nearly missed my trolley to the station. Dear me, I am just neither here nor there without my car. I need to pick it up next week, PT, so I’ll be shuttling back here with you. Hello, there, dear,” she said, extending a hand back to Gracie. “I’m Dorothy, one of the antique waitresses.”

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am. I’m Gracie Antes.”

“Oh, please don’t ma’am me. My students do it all year and it makes me feel old. I need my Crestmont summers to liven up these forty-five-year-old bones. Call me Dorothy. Whew, it certainly is hot enough. Oh look, there’s Isaiah and Olivia. Yoo-hoo!” She beckoned to them from the car window. “All aboard the Crestmont shuttle.”

A burly man with skin like coal and big apple cheeks protectively ushered a dainty woman with copper skin into the car. The woman’s elegance and quiet nature made Gracie like her immediately.

“Guess that’s it for this run,” PT said, starting the engine.

After they introduced themselves, Isaiah pounded Gracie on the back and said, “One big happy family, right, Olivia?” He drew the palm of his wife’s tiny hand to his lips and kissed it. Sniffing suspiciously, he wrinkled his nose. “Lord Almighty, Dorothy, I hate that roses stink stuff you wear. Don’t you bring that smell into my kitchen, hear?”

“It’s imported Ashes of Roses eau de cologne, Isaiah,” she corrected him. “It was Lawrence’s favorite, bless my dear husband’s soul, and as long as Sears carries it, I will continue to wear it. And as far as your kitchen goes, there are so many aromas floating about no one will notice a little perfume. Besides, Mrs. Swett loves it and says so each summer when she hands me a fine tip.”

“I don’t know how you can be so hotsy-totsy to those old biddies in the dining room. They act like they run the place instead of Mr. Woods. You are crazy to take those tables near the lakeside windows, Dorothy. Why, you have to deal with all three of them at once, plus two husbands. Who’s that one always feeling like she’s sick—Mrs. Pennyswoon?”

“Mrs. Pennington, Isaiah. Be kind, now,” Olivia said softly, with a slight accent Gracie couldn’t identify.

“First of all, Isaiah,” Dorothy instructed, “if you ever stepped out of your kitchen you would see that the west window tables afford a commanding view of the lake and are therefore reserved for our, shall we say, more faithful, well-to-do guests. Secondly, Mrs. Woods has graciously assigned them to me because she feels I have the maturity and skills to mitigate some of their outlandish behavior.”

“Hey, PT,” Isaiah chuckled, “translate, please.”

“Dorothy is good at keeping the Rude Regals in line, so Mrs. Woods gives her the tables where she gets really great tips.”

“Thanks, pal,” said Isaiah.

“Oh, my word, I simply am beside myself when I hear people call them the Rude Regals. They are people with problems, just like you and me. Mrs. Pennington’s ailments are an indication that she needs some attention. Miss Woodford simply feels she is of a higher station than anyone else. If I can show some special attention or give deference to make someone happy, then I will do it. Besides, I find it a challenge to use my people skills on a higher level with the adults at the Crestmont than with my elementary students.”

The more everyone else talked, the more Gracie knew it would take some doing to feel like she fit in. Her stomach grumbled, and she wished she had bought more than a candy bar for lunch. The clouds she watched from her window glided like wavy streamers in the sky. As they motored toward the Crestmont, her eyes got heavy. Realizing that she would need a lot more energy before the day was over; she turned her head toward the window and tried to sleep. “Dear God,” she prayed, “Please make this be all right. If I was wrong to do it, then turn it for good.”

After a long drive, PT slowed the car when they passed through stone pillars on either side of the Crestmont driveway. They ascended a steep hill to an immense three-story brown building with yellow awnings. PT parked the car. Gracie stood nervously by while the others grabbed their luggage and dashed off in a flash, saying, “See you soon!”

“Come on, I’ll show you to Mr. Woods’ office,” PT said, lifting Gracie’s suitcase out of the trunk. Gracie took in the immensity of the porch as they walked up the center steps. Once they were inside the striking lobby area, PT pointed to a huge grandfather clock. “That’s my favorite. Name’s Old Tim,” he explained. “Mrs. Woods’ father had it shipped from England when he built the place.”

Gracie’s heart started to flutter. Oh, honestly, what had she gotten herself into? She tried not to trip over her own feet.

PT knocked on an office door, flicked his eyes toward it and said, “They’re swell people. Good luck.”

“Come in!” called a high-pitched, authoritative male voice.

My Thoughts

"Crestmont" is a delightful read. Mrs. Weiss has captured the essence of the time period, the area and the people themselves. Her writing style and prose created a book that reminded me of something that was written many years ago. It is gentle, yet very captivating.

The characters are nicely developed and created a believable story. Gracie was an enchanting creature who left home starry-eyed, but still a needed escape. Her time at Crestmont was one of self-discovery and growth, and not at all what she had planned.

This book is excellent not only because of the story line, but also with the accurate research that ended up capturing the true character of both Crestmont and Eagle's Mere. This is truly an amazing piece of historical fiction! I HIGHLY recommend it!!!!

Industrial Pioneers by Patrick Brown - Virtual Book Tour and Review

About Patrick Brown

Patrick Brown was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He graduated Magna cum Laude from Georgetown University, where he won the Morris Medal for best senior history honors thesis. He currently teaches high school social studies in the Mississippi Delta through Teach for America.

His latest book is Industrial Pioneers: Scranton, Pennsylvania and the Transformation of America, 1840-1902, a detailed history account of the town of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

You can visit his website at http://www.industrialpioneers.com.

 

About Industrial  Pioneers: Scranton, Pennsylvania and the Transformation of America, 1840-1902

During the nineteenth century, Scranton was the face of innovation, immigration, industrialization, and a rising America. Scranton was “the electric city” when electricity was the most exciting invention in the world, and a hub of technology and innovation—between 1840 and 1902, the city of Scranton changed from a lazy backwoods community to a modern industrial society with 100,000 residents. During this time, Scranton’s citizens desperately tried to adapt their thinking to keep up with the overwhelming changes around them, and in the process forged the world views that would define the twentieth century. As globalization, technology and immigration transform the United States today, this book revisits how the people the forefront of the industrial revolution moved from chaos to a new order, and how they found meaning within a rapidly changing world.

Periods of total societal transformation often provide the best material for historians. The way that Scranton’s residents reimagined their value within society in response to the changes around them did not evolve in step with technological and economic progress—rather, those living through these changes slowly and painfully adapted extant modes of thinking in light of their new life circumstances. This book weaves a cohesive narrative that explains how Scranton—and America—went from the personal, egalitarian society of the early days of the republic to the rigidly institutionalized society that endures today.

This book’s investigation of the history of Scranton allows the reader to witness the development of the distinct and interrelated ideologies that defined industrial America.

Read the Excerpt!

INTRODUCTION: The Face of America “If the American white working class were a sect, Scranton, Pennsylvania, might be its Jerusalem. The old coal town has declined steadily since its heyday in the middle of the last century. Hillary Clinton played up her family roots in Scranton during the Democratic primaries against Barack Obama, drawing large support from anxious, white, working classes. In turn Mr. Obama chose a running mate, Joe Biden, in part for his own ties to the town: Mr. Biden spent his childhood in Scranton. On Sunday November 2nd the latest Scranton-lover was John McCain, who gave a speech there. His slim hopes for the presidency rely on sowing enough doubts in places such as northeastern Pennsylvania to overcome the polls and win that state.”

— The Economist, November 3, 2008 —
(one day before the presidential election)

Scranton, Pennsylvania, seemed to be everywhere during the 2008 presidential election campaign. Politicians flocked to the city because it embodied many concerns of voters throughout America—jobs sent overseas; businesses struggling to adapt to a 21st century economy, and citizens trying to defend a traditional set of values in a rapidly changing world. Throughout the late twentieth century, Scranton has been, as the title of a 2005 book suggests, “The Face of Decline” in the United States, and presidential candidates seeking to reassure voters concerned about the future of the nation could find no better platform.

What most political candidates and talking heads probably did not realize during the campaign is that during the nineteenth century Scranton served as the face of a rising America, and a hub of technology and innovation. The city was the first in the nation to produce the iron rails necessary to expand the nation’s railways, and it mined the anthracite coal and forged the steel that drove America’s industrial revolution. In 1886, Scranton began operating the nation’s first electric streetcar system, earning it the nickname, “The Electric City,” at a time when electricity was the most exciting innovation in the world. Scranton was, in a sense, the Silicon Valley of the nineteenth century.

Scranton also served as the face of immigration during the nineteenth century, as immigrants from across England, Wales, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, and throughout Europe flocked to the city in search of employment. As a city at the epicenter of the economic, social, and political changes sweeping the nation, Scranton was truly the face of industrializing America.

Periods of extraordinary change often provide the best material for historians, and perhaps the most remarkable facet of Scranton’s development is the fact that the city grew from an egalitarian backwoods community to a modern industrial society of 100,000 residents in sixty-two years. The way Scranton’s residents thought about themselves and their value within society did not evolve in step with technological and economic progress—rather, those living through these changes slowly and painfully adapted extant modes of thinking in light of their new life circumstances. Identifying the mindset of Scranton’s residents at the commencement of industrialization and tracing how events and developments affected the thinking of those living in the city, weaves a unified narrative that explains how Scranton—and America—went from the personal, egalitarian society of the early days of the republic to the rigidly institutionalized society that endures today. In the development of Scranton from 1840 to 1902, Scranton’s residents passed through four distinct mindsets in their quest to reconcile their assumptions about the world with their life experiences.

Many books and articles describe certain aspects or elements of this period, but the period from 1840 to 1902 is a unified story.

Residents of Scranton like Frederick Hitchcock and Benjamin Throop wrote books intended as histories of the city during the nineteenth century, but these works must be understood as heavily biased primary sources.

Every in-depth secondary source on the city focuses on a specific element related to the city’s development.Grace Palladino examined the relationship between labor, capital, and the state during the Civil War. Multiple authors, including Craig Phelan, chronicled Terence Powderly’s dual role as mayor and union leader. Harold Aurand studied the conditions of coal miners throughout the region. R.G. Healey modeled the business dynamics of the coal industry. Multiple works discuss the 1902 anthracite strike, and a number of authors focus on specific ethnicities within the city. No work, however, has brought all of this rich material together to trace the rise of the city over an extended period. For the sake of clarity, what follows is organized both chronologically and categorically.

The first chapter covers the years 1840 to 1860, and describes the Village Blacksmith ideology, which predated Scranton’s industrial development. Before the Scranton family began producing iron in the area, residents lived like the village blacksmith in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem of the same name. They derived respect from their status as independent producers and members of an egalitarian community. During the twenty-year period covered by this chapter, Scranton grew from the small town of Slocum Hollow to a rapidly expanding industrial city integrated into the national market. This growth created opportunities for ambitious individuals to prosper, but residents retained their pre-industrial assumptions. Noninstitutional power, like the power of personality in the workplace, retained its importance within the community through most of the period. By 1860, however, a capitalist ideal, distinct from the Village Blacksmith ideal, was emerging.

The second chapter explores the development of the city between 1860 and 1877, examining how two remarkably similar men, Thomas Dickson and Terence Powderly, came to articulate opposing viewpoints. While Dickson attained extraordinary success as the founder of the Dickson Manufacturing Company and later as president of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, Powderly failed in his attempts to break into the capitalist class early in his life, and instead turned to organizing labor through unions.

The chapter describes how the Civil War spurred rapid economic growth in Scranton, and how subsequent economic downturns revealed the crystallization of distinct capitalist and labor classes through the strikes of 1869, 1871, and 1877. Throughout this period, workers could not reconcile their worldview with their status in a cyclical economy, and the resulting frustration led to the riots of 1877, in which workers resorted to violence, but failed to defeat the combined forces of capital and state government.

The third chapter examines the period of 1878 to 1886, during which Terence Powderly worked for social, political, and economic reforms that extended across occupational, ethnic, and gender lines. In Powderly’s dual role as mayor of Scranton and Grand Master Workingman of the national Knights of Labor union, the largest labor organization in the United States in the 1880s, he unsuccessfully attempted to translate the frustration evidenced by the riots of 1877 into a broad and enduring working-class identity. The chapter describes the importance of ethnicity in the workplace, at the voting booth, and in society, and argues that Powderly’s belief in the coincidental interests of labor and capital led to the failure of his ideas. By 1886, the Knights of Labor was collapsing, Powderly’s political career had ended, and workers in Scranton once again encountered an ideological vacuum.

The fourth chapter chronicles the emergence of the trade union ideology and capital mobility during the period 1886-1902. The chapter describes the terrible living conditions of mining families, and the disrespect directed to them by their employers. In an attempt to ameliorate these conditions, the United Mine Workers arrived in Scranton in 1899, and began organizing the area’s miners.
Two major events occurred in 1902. An anthracite coal strike called by the United Mine Workers proved so disruptive to the national economy that it forced intervention by the federal government, and the Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company relocated its production facilities to Buffalo, New York.

These two events foreshadowed the characteristics of industrial America in the twentieth century. Organized labor developed effective organizational strategies, and the state progressively enacted more labor-friendly legislation, but in response to labor’s success in demanding higher wages, organized capital used ethnic and occupational divisions to divide workers, and periodically moved production to new locations in order to take advantage of an unorganized workforce.
Taken together, these four chapters trace the trajectory of industrializing Scranton. The four chapters overlap at points. Ethnicity played an important role in the development of Scranton between 1860 and 1877, the cyclical economy operated from 1878 to 1902, and miners faced deplorable conditions throughout the entire history of the city.

Understanding these events and forces is essential to an understanding of the processes, trends, and, most important, ways of thinking that defined Scranton’s growth, and presaged developments brought on by industrialization and urbanization throughout the United States. This is the clearest means to understand an immensely rich period of history.

My Thoughts

What an amazing book! Mr. Brown does a wonderful job walking us through the this important part of Scranton's history. He presents the facts in an easy read and understand format. He uses and refers to Longfellow's poem " The Village Blacksmith" throughout the book. I found it interesting and really causes the facts to "hit home".

This book is a fascinating read and really brings to light the importance of Scranton's role in the transformation of not just the East, but American itself. This is a great book for both history buffs and those that are interested in PA history!

This book was supplied through Pump Up Your Book for me to honestly review.