This week we welcome Mary Connealy to Author Memories.

The Sweetest Gift
by Mary Connealy
Theirs was a classic marriage of convenience.
My grandma grew up in Nebraska, not that far from my grandpa but they never met. She was the only child of a judge. She attended college when very few women did. She traveled in Europe and studied there, then went to Columbia University in New York City, and The University of Washington in Washington State to earn a master's degree. She was a spinster who lived with her parents, worked as a librarian and was a wonderfully talented pianist.

And my grandpa, a prosperous farmer, might have been a great success.
When he proposed she said yes. He got on a train in Nebraska, rode out to Washington State, they got married and traveled home together, man and wife.
To look at them it seems a huge mismatch. But by all accounts their marriage was a congenial one. They had four children, the first one born fourteen months after the wedding. So whatever difficulties they found in marrying under such strange circumstances, their marriage was real in all ways, after all she was pregnant within five months.

I am trying right now to write a story, fictionalized, but with the same circumstances as my grandparents. One thing I remember so clearly about my grandparents house…my grandpa died when I was about five years old and I don't remember him…so it was just grandma in that old country farm home….was the grand piano.
There was a grand piano in my grandma's house. I've asked my mom and her sisters and no one remembers a time when it wasn't there. No one remembers talk of when it was purchased. It was huge. It seemed to fill the entire room it was in and nothing else was in that room but the piano.
I like to think that huge, beautiful instrument in that small house was my grandfather giving my grandmother a gift of pure love.
Leave a comment by midnight, Oct 16th
to be entered to win one of 2 giveaways:
- a copy of Mary's Historical, Out of Control
or
- a copy of Mary's Contemporary Suspense, Ten Plagues
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Out of Control, Bethany House, Aug 2011

Rafe Kincaid controls everything in his life...
until he meets Julia.
Julia Gilliland has always been interested in the natural world around her. She particularly enjoys studying the fossils and formations in the magnificent cave near her father's house. The cave seems plenty safe--until the day a mysterious intruder steals the rope she uses to climb out.
Rafe Kincaid is a man used to being in control--of himself, his brothers, and his family's ranch. The last thing he expects is to find a woman trapped in the cavern on his land--or to be forced to kiss her!
Rafe is more intrigued by Julia than any woman he's ever known. But when their developing relationship threatens a reconciliation with his brothers, will Rafe have to choose between his family and this new love that could heal his troubled heart and secure his happiness?
Seekerville - http://www.seekerville.net/
Petticoats & Pistols - http://petticoatsandpistols.com/
Mary's Blog -http://mconnealy.blogspot.com/
Mary's Website - http://www.maryconnealy.com/
Mary Nealy's Website - http://marynealy.blogspot.com/