Family

I grew up hearing the Mayberry-whistled tunes and tales of our family lore. We youngsters could recite them like catechism around holiday dinner tables. But there was one tendril of ancestry that remained shadowed in silence, save for the odd quip or eyebrow twitch among a few adults—when we asked about those, the subject was quickly changed.

My detective work took me to Wheeling throughout the 19th century with its industrialization, the split from Virginia, the war.

Faces began to emerge. Voices piped up.

These were rambunctious and determined people.

The Wheeling Intelligencer archives connected those names with skullduggery as well as the charming, mundane features of everyday life—who was visiting from out of town, who had a soirée, who was arrested for running messages for a bawdy house, who sued and countersued, who got into a fistfight and why.

No Andy, Opie, or Aunt Bee here. But I discovered the wildly resilient spirit of Wheeling—its eagerness to place a bet, its sense of humor, and the vivid color of the human spirit amid the relentless gray of mill soot, clouds, and grit.

They inspired the characters in this book.

(This photo consists of stunt doubles standing in for remembered family dinners. We did not look like this. No actual relatives were harmed in the making of this post.)