Sometimes miracles happen when you expect them least but need them most. It is Christmas Eve of 1863. As a snow storm howls out-side, Maggie and her family care for their three youngest members, all of whom are seriously ill. A knock at the door brings an unanticipated interruption in the form of an odd little peddler. Despite her anxiety over the children, Maggie invites the stranger in and feeds him supper, an act of kindness that has an impact on her entire family.

Romance is in the air for Maggie Blaine Smith's daughters when Sergeant Patrick McCoy (daughter Frankie Blaine's beau) and Captain Philip Frost (daughter Lydia Blaine Lape's friend) make a surprise visit to Blaineton, New Jersey on their way to their new posts at Mower General Hospital, Philadelphia. Maggie struggles as she realizes that her daughters are becoming women. Eighteen-year-old Frankie will marry Patrick eventually. That much is obvious. But when? Maggie hopes and prays it will not for a while yet. Meanwhile, her husband Eli Smith is on a campaign to protect his stepdaughter's chastity, something both Frankie and Patrick find annoying. Neither parent, though, has any concerns about Lydia. She is the sensible one, the one who never does anything impulsively. In addition, she is an adult - nearly twenty-two years of age - and still in mourning for her late husband, Edgar Lape. Nothing to see here. Or is there?A visit Philadelphia and its Great Central Fair of 1864 just might change things for everyone.

Maggie Beatty Blaine Smith is a woman with a big heart. She used to run a rooming house and happily welcomed "down on their luck" boarders. Maggie also is a white woman who lives and works with her friends Nate and Emily Johnson, who are black. Because the boarding house had been located next to Blaineton's town square, the people living in Maggie's house were clearly visible, meaning that the town folk wrinkled their noses at her establishment and labeled her as an eccentric do-gooder.But now it is 1864. The members of her household have become more prosperous and they all have moved to the edge of Blaineton and into the spacious confines of Greybeal House. And Maggie is free to pursue her loving, welcoming lifestyle without having to face the town's disapproval. So, when Mary and Addie, two orphaned girls of color, show up, Maggie and Emily take them in without a thought. Upon learning that the girls need an education, the two women decide to enroll them in the Blaineton School, only to discover there's a problem: the school no longer takes black pupils. Worse yet, the one educational option open for children of color has been closed down.Maggie and Emily quickly come up with a solution: start a privately funded school not just for Mary and Addie, but for all of Blaineton's black children, one that will be far away from prying eyes. But word soon begins to spread about the school, talk morphs into resentment and anger, and things rapidly spin out of control. When controversy finally threatens to blow Blaineton apart, Maggie is called upon to unite the town.

It is August of 1862 and sixteen-year-old Frances "Frankie" Blaine learns that her beau, Patrick, will be enlisting in the Army. In the flush of first love, Frankie wants to be by his side. She also wonders why she can't enlist and fight in the war too. Since no one seems able to give her a rational explanation other than that she can't because she is a girl, Frankie comes up with a plan. But it backfires and thrusts her into a world that she didn't expect and from which she learns some large lessons.

More than just the story of Charles Bests discovery of insulin, this is the tale of an extraordinary couple, told through diaries, scrapbooks, and photographs.

People who are considered “famous” can be found in many different fields. This book describes 472 museums, historic sites, and memorials about 409 people in 26 categories: Actors Explorers Playwrights Architects First Ladies Poets Artists/Sculptors Frontiersmen Presidents Athletes Journalists/Publishers Public Officials/ Author/Writers Medical Innovators Political Figures Aviators/Astronauts Military Figures Religious Leaders Business/Industrial/Financial Musicians/Singers/ Scientists/Engineers/ Figures Composers Inventors Educators Outlaws Social Activists Entertainers Patriotic Figures Socialites They include such people as Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Georgia O’Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, Sinclair Lewis, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Will Rogers, Daniel Boone, Buffalo Bill Cody, William Randolph Hearst, Douglas MacArthur, Robert E. Lee, Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, Betsy Ross, Carl Sandburg, Jesse James, Benjamin Franklin, Daniel Webster, Billy Graham, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jane Addams, Frederick Douglass, Doris Duke, Helen Keller, Wilbur and Orville Wright, and all the Presidents, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Among the sites of the museums and other tributes are such places as the Katharine Hepburn Museum, Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio, Babe Ruth Museum, Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, Mark Twain House and Museum, Charles A. Lindberg Historic Site, Lincoln Memorial, Morgan Library and Museum, Kit Carson Home and Museum, Clara Barton National Historic Site, Stonewall Jackson’s Home, Marian Anderson Residence/Museum and Birthplace, Stephen Foster Memorial Museum, Tennessee Williams Birthplace/Home, Mount Vernon: George Washington’s Estate and Gardens, Roger Williams National Memorial, Rachel Carson Homestead, Rosa Parks Library and Museum, and Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum. In addition to the chapters and directory, the book includes a geographical guide to the sites, selected bibliography, index, and 29 photographs.