My Take
DiVoran Lites
My grandmother, Marie Dulgar, remembered the clay pipe her grandmother, Nancy Emmeline Dulgar smoked. It was short and small, the size of a large sewing thimble. The face of an Indian had been engraved on it. She sat in her rocking-chair on the wooden porch smoking and watching the world go by.
She wore four petticoats. Her second one was green and had a long pocket where she carried her tobacco. The boys in the family had enjoyed stealing it when she wasn’t looking, but now they could not get to it. They were flummoxed for a while but easily found other worlds of mischief to get into.
This grandma was the storyteller in the family so the children didn’t want to bother her enough that she wouldn’t tell the stories.
Marie said that her family had bad tempers. That was the Dulgars. Her husband’s family had bad tempers, too. That was the Bowers family. The Coopers who were ancestors of the Bowers family lived in a sad and gloomy house because Solomon Cooper worked as a coffin maker. In his shed, he made mummy-shaped wooden coffins measured to fit the deceased.
This is a tintype photograph of the Coopers. There was no tin used in these pictures but a lacquered piece of thin metal, usually iron was used. This type of picture was most common between the years of 1860-1890. It’s amazing and thrilling that we have our very own tintype passed down for four generations. The more I see even the oldest pictures taken in America, the more I am convinced that the most primitive takes turned out sharp and clear, even though early on the film was known to burst into flame and burn down theaters.
Coincidently Bill’s and Judy’s grandfather was a coffin-maker/undertaker too. This man once made a beautiful coffee table from a large and valuable piece of wood that fell off a train. He gave it to his daughter, Jessie, and she still had it when I knew her. By then it had become a priceless antique.
William King
Addie King, Agnes Lites, William King, and Billy Lites
DiVoran has been writing for most of her life. Her first attempt at a story was when she was seven years old and her mother got a new typewriter. DiVoran got to use it and when her dad saw her writing he asked what she was writing about. DiVoran answered that she was writing the story of her life. Her dad’s only comment was, “Well, it’s going to be a very short story.” After most of a lifetime of writing and helping other writers, DiVoran finally launched her own dream which was to write a novel of her own. She now has her Florida Springs trilogy and her novel, a Christian Western Romance, Go West available on Amazon. When speaking about her road to publication, she gives thanks to the Lord for all the people who helped her grow and learn. She says, “I could never have done it by myself, but when I got going everything fell beautifully into place, and I was glad I had started on my dream.”
Old Things R New 
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