I have always loved trees. Climbed them as a girl, sat under them, collected their leaves, tried to learn their names. As I grew older, I hiked through them, marveled at their shapes and sizes, and grew to hate when they were cut down.

 

Then a career in nursing and raising a family became my focus. However, in 1980 I helped build a  log cabin in the Shade Mountains of Juniata County near the town of McAllisterville, Pennsylvania, and my love of trees and the forests was reignited. The trees on our fifteen acres and those around it had been clear cut in the 1960’s, so the forest was very young. Over the next 40 years I watched the trees mature and observed the rich wildlife that changed along with the forests. My greatest pleasure while walking in the woods and the trails surrounding the cabin was to be still, watch, and listen. I stored those observations in my mind, along with the wonder of life among the forests.

 

I wondered what it would have been like to live when the forests were mostly untouched. Where a young girl came of age before machinery and industry changed the landscapes in the mountains and valleys of Juniata County. Where farmers traditionally owned forested land to hunt for game and harvest firewood. A time when forestry practices had devastated most of our Pennsylvania woodlands and our state became the epicenter of lumber production in the world. 

 

I wondered what it would have been like to grow up in the late 1800’s when women had few choices to become independent and self-supporting. To realize their dreams, even if it meant going against the expectations of those who loved them. To experience the conflict between the haves and have-nots and societal prejudice against women who sought to find their own path at that time in history.

 

This is how the story of The Trees Remember was born. What was to be a single book became three. And what I thought would take a year or so, turned out to be a seven-year journey through research, writer’s groups, workshops, rewriting, editing, and more editing. A story of courage, love, and above all, truth.

 

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