Eliza Goode is born into a New OrleansÕ parlor house in the mid 1800s. Sold as a courtesan on her seventeenth birthday, she flees her arranged future at the outbreak of the Civil War. She is passed up through MississippiÕs plantations from one slave quarters to another until she emerges at the ConfederatesÕ Camp Corinth and is swept along to the battle of Manassas. Along the way, she meets Bennett McFerrin and his wife, Rissa, who follows her husband to war. Using guile and her extraordinary beauty, Eliza transforms herself from camp follower prostitute to laundress, nurse, and caregiver to Rissa when Bennett is taken prisoner by Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Fort Donelson in Clarksville, Tennessee. Her final transformation frees her from her past. ElizaÕs story is more than a tale of war, transcendence, and hardship. It is a story told in modern times by Susan Masters, a novelist in Boston, whose cousin, Hadley, finds ElizaÕs letters in an attic and implores Susan to write ElizaÕs story to answer questions she seeks for her own life. Hadley has a shameful secret of her ownÑa past, about which she cannot even bring herself to speak. Set in the second summer of the Iraq war and three years after 9/11, this is not your usual Civil War novel. This story says much about how we became who we are, and who we might have become, had the Civil War not saved us as a nation.

Mr. Landrum deftly captures the key political developments in Spartanburg County for the century following the Revolution. Special chapters are also devoted to the issues of religion, temperance, education, and, of course, secession. Landrum's real concern, however, is with the people of Spartanburg County; indeed the final 500 pages of the book are devoted to biographical and genealogical sketches of its families and luminaries.

Against a global backdrop of wartime suffering and postwar hope, Borrowing Life gathers the personal histories of the men and women behind the team that enabled and performed the modern medical miracle of the world's first successful organ transplant. "An extraordinary work. Shelley Fraser Mickle has not only provided a detailed, fascinating documentation of the world's first successful organ transplant, but she has also painted the lives of those involved--doctors, patients, family members--so vividly that the reader is completely enthralled and emotionally invested in their grieved losses as well as their successes. The result is a beautiful tribute to medical science as well as to humanity." Jill McCorkle, NYT bestselling author of Life After Life "Working with Dr. Moore, Dr. Murray and Dr, Vandam to create the painting commemorating their historic operation and the research leading up to it was the greatest adventure of my artistic career. Having my painting on the cover of Borrowing Life renews that excitement, for I know what grand adventure is waiting for the reader." Joel Babb, artist "I was so very pleased to be involved with Shelley as she wrote her captivating, compelling book. I only wish that Ron could be here with me to read it." Cynthia Herrick, wife of the first successful organ transplant donor "Had these men and women not worked diligently to save the life of Charles Woods, I and my 5 brothers and 3 sisters, would not have been born. Charles Woods and Miriam Woods are my parents. It is thrilling to read Ms Mickle's book as it closely mirrors the stories our dad and mom shared with us as children. The amazing thing is that as a disfigured war hero, our dad embraced his appearance as a badge of honor." David Woods Performed at Boston's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in 1954, the first successful kidney transplant was the culmination of years of grit, compassion, and the pursuit of excellence by a remarkable medical team--Nobel Prize-winning surgeon Joseph Murray, his boss and fellow surgeon Francis Moore, and British scientist and fellow Nobel laureate Peter Medawar. Drawing on the lives of these members of the Greatest Generation, Borrowing Life creates a compelling narrative that begins in wartime and tracks decades of the ups and downs, personal and professional, of these inspiring men and their achievements, which continue to benefit humankind in so many ways.

Woodrow Nash's sculptures of enslaved children populate the first American slavery museum--Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana. His works breathe spirit into history, a legacy as painful as it is inspiring, a vision that engages us in powerful ways. The stories he tells of his artistic process and the images of proud figures fill this unusual book with emotion. Award-winning novelist Shelley Fraser Mickle became friends with Nash and together they crafted a strong statement that illuminates the true history of slavery and the shadows it casts on all Americans. In a collection of biographies informed by historical documents, Nash and Mickle walk readers through his creation of proud statues celebrating African royalty and rough images of enslaved children still carrying the vestiges of their fierce heritage. The research that binds the images to our reality is found in ship's manifests, post-Civil War cartes de visite, and a wealth of books and articles cited in the bibliography. A brief history of sculpture provides context for the art created by Nash--sculptures that illuminate the lives of Africans before their enslavement and reveal their resilience in their new existence. Stunning photographs frame the story and beautifully capture the relationship between artist and creation in this one-of-a-kind book for young readers.

Eliza Goode is born into a New Orleans parlor house in the mid 1800s. Sold as a courtesan on her seventeenth birthday, she flees her arranged future at the outbreak of the Civil War. She is passed up through Mississippi s plantations from one slave quarters to another until she emerges at the Confederates Camp Corinth and is swept along to the battle of Manassas. Along the way, she meets Bennett McFerrin and his wife, Rissa, who follows her husband to war. Using guile and her extraordinary beauty, Eliza transforms herself from camp follower prostitute to laundress, nurse, and caregiver to Rissa when Bennett is taken prisoner by Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Fort Donelson in Clarksville, Tennessee. Her final transformation frees her from her past. Eliza s story is more than a tale of war, transcendence, and hardship. It is a story told in modern times by Susan Masters, a novelist in Boston, whose cousin, Hadley, finds Eliza s letters in an attic and implores Susan to write Eliza s story to answer questions she seeks for her own life. Hadley has a shameful secret of her own a past, about which she cannot even bring herself to speak. Set in the second summer of the Iraq war and three years after 9/11, this is not your usual Civil War novel. This story says much about how we became who we are, and who we might have become, had the Civil War not saved us as a nation."

Roy Wheeler Bell, son of William Edward Bell and Mary Ann Wheeler, was born in 1897 in Arkansas or Texas. He married Lydia Reola Estes (1900-1950), daughter of Ambrose Wickersham Estes and Mary Bell Noe, in 1922. They had two children. He died in 1958 in Harris County, Texas.