Hawthorne Contact

Well, today I saw that the town of Hawthorne got back to me! There is someone they thought could be of use in learning about the history of the area when Chuck was growing up there in the 1920's and early 30's. I'm very happy! I was hoping there had to be someone--I know in my own little town of Bristol there were always a couple of people who kept collected photos and records from our history.

My hope is that this person might even be able to help me figure out where the farm that Chuck's family used to own might have been located. I imagine that might be in the town or land records somewhere. It might be fun to amble around in that area, talk to some people, find out where the town kids used to hang out (or maybe still do). I went on Google Earth and Hawthorne is a pretty small place, very rural. I'm sure, seeing it, that Chuck's mom probably moved to a different town nearby when her husband passed and they lost the farm. I wonder if I'll be able to figure out where.

To Do List: My next task is to construct a list of questions to ask my contact. I plan to call and schedule an interview, but you never know when the answer might be, "Sure! How about now?"

Research: I need to work on that basic timeline of Chuck's life, so that I can reference things like "Between what years would the family likely have lost the farm, given Malcolmson's account?" These facts might help me reconstruct some details about Chuck's family past.

Interesting Factoid: Today I found that the style of non-fiction I am attempting is called creative nonfiction. It's a relatively new style for non-fiction (something I didn't particularly realize, since I've only read nonfiction since my husband started loaning it to me). There's a Wikipedia entry about it.  You can see that here: Creative Nonfiction.