Meredith Kennon - The Memoirs of Lottie Hill

TheMemoirs

ofLottie Hill

A Novel by

MeredithKennon

This book is awork of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are productsof the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actualevents or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2014by Meredith Kennon

All rightsreserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

For additionalinformation regarding the author, including future works, please visitmeredithkennon.blogspot.com or her Meredith Kennon Facebook page.

Other works by MeredithKennon:

Under the Same Umbrella

Tattered Letters

The Greystone Series,consisting of:

Almost Enough

At Willows Edge

Return to Greystone

The Gown Shop on RegentStreet, although a stand-alone novel, has many characters firstmet in the

Greystone Series

Also by MeredithKennon:

A Grandmothers HomeCompanion

A Nostalgic Treasury ofSeasons Past and Simpler Times

Acknowledgements

I want to express my greatappreciation for the help Ive received in the writing of this book. I thank mydear husband Henry, who assisted me every step of the way, and my daughterKaty, who always helps me with the big picture. Without their support,this book would not have come about.

I also thank Katy Williams ofBennington, Nebraska, and Melissa Wiedrich of Coon Rapids, Iowa, for givingfreely of their time to help me with this effort.

I want to especially acknowledge TammyGray of Ennis, Texas, who has given me invaluable help in marketing, as well aseditorial areas. I cant thank her enough. She is T. L. Gray, the successfulauthor of the Winsor Series, Christian Romance.

I thank Henry and Joni Wiedrich ofGretna, Nebraska for their help in legal areas and the building and maintainingof my blog, meredithkennon.blogspot.com and also my Meredith Kennon Facebookpage.

I appreciate the enormous help Ireceived from photographer Rae Wiedrich of Roscoe, South Dakota, for her help andadvice in the creation of the cover.

I would like to acknowledge theinternet website, BBC WW2 Peoples War. It is an especially valuable tool forunderstanding the conditions on Britains homefront, and I thank the people forsharing their personal stories of the war.

I thank my family, especially my aunt,Phyllis Blake of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, who approved my use of a photographof my grandmother for the cover. Grandmother Mary was born a few years beforeLottie Hill, my fictional heroine, but she grew up in the same era andexperienced both of the wars as an American.

I express my continued awe andpraise for the British and Scottish people on their homefronts in both of theworld wars. Their dogged determination was as key to their victories as the menwho fought in the sky, on the land, and on the sea. I, too, believe There WillAlways Be an England, as expressed in the patriotic song by Ross Parker andHugh Charles, which became popular in 1939, just before the war.

I especially want to thank you, myreaders, who have encouraged me to keep writing. Thank you so much for yourcontinued support.

For my children

The Memoirs

of Lottie Hill

by

Meredith Kennon

Prologue

As the airplane lifted off fromEppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska, twenty-five-year-old Erica Sinclair felt bothexcited and nervous to start a new life far from home. Everything that had evermattered to her had somehow disintegrated in the last few months, and she was desperatefor changedesperate enough to do something drastic. She had accepted the jobas an Editorial Assistant at The London View, a position shed seenlisted on the internet. Knowing only that it was considered a trendy,up-and-coming cosmopolitan magazine with an internet following worldwide, shehad applied for the job without saying anything to anyone.

According to her father, it was ahasty move, an unwise and impetuous one, hed said, when she told him as a faitaccompli that shed been offered the job and had accepted it. He insistedangrily that she could have hadand, with a change of attitude, might stillhavea promising future in his own company.

She didnt want a future with herfather, whose morals had always been sadly lacking, repeatedly hurting thewoman hed married.

Ericas mother Anne had died ofcancer four years before, and Erica had never really recovered emotionally. Shedbeen to counseling, and although the sessions had helped, she missed her motherso much at times, she could hardly bear it.

As Omaha faded from her view fromthe airplane window, Erica wished her last conversation with her father couldfade as easily. As she had grown accustomed to over the years, he berated heron a number of counts. He delivered his final authoritative pronouncements bydealing two devastating blows simultaneouslyremarks calculated to knock heroff her feet, to silence and crush her. First, he stated cruelly that if herdrastic decision to run off to England was a dramatic ploy to rekindle herex-boyfriends affections, she could have achieved the same objective by merelydropping a few pounds. This, of course, made her cringe and actually take astep back in self-defense, but then he dealt his final blow. He was absolutelycertain that her deceased mother would have seen Ericas present actions asimmature and impulsive and would have been deeply disappointed in her.

Those blows hit with their usualeffect, but this time, Erica found her voice, refuting tearfully, I dontagree with you, and how I wish she were here! I believe shed want me to followmy own dreams and not sink slowly into the quicksand of Midwest Consulting. Istudied to become a journalist, if you recall.

I remember writing the checks,well enough, he replied caustically. Vi thinks its time you started payingback a little for your privileges, which are many.

And I think you pay way too muchattention to the opinions of your latest distraction. And why should I carewhat Vi thinks, anyway? Besides, I know that Grandpa Bruckner set aside all themoney for my education years ago. The tuition checks were to be written fromthat trust, whichin factthey were. Mom told me that herself before she died,in case you should try something like this!

Something, like what? hedcountered furiously, embarrassed at being caught in a lie.

Taking credit for my education andthen strong-arming me to do whatever it is you want me to do out of obligationto you. Besides, playing the dutiful daughter as the office underling is not myidea of a future.

Perhaps your mother could havebetter spent her time teaching you to respect your elders and show appreciationfor all youve been given.

Remembering his falling-out manyyears ago with his own father, shed retorted, As you did, of course, withGrandpa Phil.

Seeing him nearly upset his morningcoffee, Erica exited his office, shaking with anger and trying not to show itas she left the building, A blast of piercing cold wind met her as she camearound the corner of the high-rise, and dashing to her car, she suddenly felt better,realizing that shed had the last word, for once.

Would you like a beverage, miss?asked the friendly stewardess. Erica was jolted out of her thoughts andgraciously accepted a soda and a tiny bag of pretzels. She finally took noticeof her fellow passengers, hearing bits of conversations and the urgent cry ofan infant at the back of the plane.

The man seated beside her commentedon the lovely day and made fun of the bags of pretzels saying, The packagingcosts as much as the pretzels inside it. Its a wonder they bother at all.

Erica agreed amicably and thenlooked again from the window, as the patchwork quilt of Iowas farmsdisappeared beneath a blanket of clouds. Smiling to herself about her blanket-centeredthoughts, she realized she was chilled and spread her long oatmeal-coloredcardigan over her. She closed her eyes against the whiteness of the envelopingcloud and retreated again into her thoughts.