Hi everyone. Long time, no see. As you all know in your own lives, COVID is not over, but we’re learning to live with it. We’ve had some losses—some of them grievous.

My baby sister died last August.

But even so, we’re moving forward, maybe approaching normal lives. For me, that means writing.

What follows is a possible prologue for my next novel. It’s set during the Great Depression, World War II, and its immediate aftermath. This is the fourth in my series, Singers, Soldiers, and Saboteurs. (I have not necessarily written or published them in order.)

Nora appeared in See Willy See and in Gravy.  I have no title for this new book, so I’m just calling it Nora for now. I’m currently writing scenes in chronological order, but some of them may appear later in the book as flashbacks and some of them may be throw aways.

What I post here provides you an opportunity to glimpse my writing process. These are first drafts and they may change substantially between the time I post them and publication. I will try to post a new scene every second week or more often.

So . . . here she is, Nora Conroy, farm girl, diplomatic staff member, and saboteur. This is a novel and the whole story is made up. BUT, those of you who knew my sister will recognize Nora.

Prologue

Not all resisters worked with firearms or bombs or ducked around hiding in shadows. Some of us worked quietly in offices producing paper, at least at first. The Third Reich operated on paper—schedules, lists, statistics, and individual documents. If you could present a Nazi with the right piece of paper, you could go about your business unharmed. Heaven protect you, however, if you didn’t have that right document.

I didn’t know any of that when I arrived in Paris in February of 1940. I didn’t know anything except that war was coming and I was going to do my best at the American Embassy to keep my country out of it. I didn’t set out to resist anything but boredom. All I wanted when I signed up for the consulate in Paris was an adventure. All the time during the 1930s when my brother wandered around the western states, moving from national park to national park picking watercress and blueberries, trapping little creatures and catching fish to eat, I remained on the family farm eating a steady diet of dry beans.

I remember writing home about my arrival, ecstatic about dining in view of the Eiffel Tower and walking the Champs Élysées. By that time, I’d spent a couple of weeks in Washington D.C. touring the U.S. Capitol, the White House, and some of the Smithsonian. I’d visited the World’s Fair in New York City. Imagine all the new inventions! I wished I could take them all apart and see how they worked.

I’d crossed an ocean on my way to Europe and waited in London for transport to the Continent. While I waited, I visited Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. I found one of the maintenance people and, after much begging and pleading, got to see the inside of the works. WOW!

Before I left for Paris, I’d barely ventured past the borders of Nebraska and here I’d landed in Europe—in Paris, the City of Lights. I’d left the dust of the Dirty Thirties and I planned to see for myself what was going on in the world, and why it seemed to be going crazy. I thought I could help make it better.

I no more than took off my coat that first day in the consulate than I had a pile of exit visas to type. Amazed at the number of Americans in the city, I spent hours making sure they had all their documents. By the end of the week, I was beginning to realize that a lot of Europeans wanted to leave. In fact, I’d begun to realize their desperation and after all, I understood desperation. I’d spent the past decade in the Dust Bowl.