Teresa Wells

I had already used my novel writing and researching as a good example of how Google is not always the best gathering tool in their bucket of available resources.  I told them that I was researching a time period I knew nothing about (1838), a place I'd never lived (North Carolina), and a culture I knew very little about (the Cherokees).  Through my research I was able to get to know more about all three, and Google had been a great asset -- until I came across what I called a "wacky website" -- where I read information contrary to everything else I'd learned.  In fact, this stuff was way out there, even though the sponsoring organization had a trustworthy kind of name. I had them guess whether or not I actually used this information.  And of course they had to back up their answers!

We went on to discuss how Google is great for some things, but not when you're researching the Civil War in a week, especially when your grade depends on how your note taking skills are!  Instead,  NetTrekker (offered through our district) can narrow down that huge topic into several great websites, making their hunt lots faster and more satisfying.

When we looked at my blog, they already knew my topic from the Google discussion.  But it was very cool to share with them what I work on in my "spare" time, outside of school.  We were able to talk about things like blog titles,  posts, how to upload pictures and post links.  We discussed what makes a quality blog -- then we actually wrote one together on a topic they'd just learned about: the Underground Railroad.  We collaborated on what made a good sentence, what should be capitalized, what was important information to include or leave out, what should be defined . . .  It was every teacher/librarian's dream.  Integration of several subjects in one high interest lesson.  Bliss.

Now if we can just get our server to keep from throwing us off every five minutes . . .

Call me obsessive compulsive. That's what I look like some days, writing this story like my life depends on it while the groceries, once again, aren't purchased, the bathtub isn't scrubbed, and those appointments that should have been made, haven't.

So what's the big deal about this story?

It's Angeline. She won't leave me alone.

Okay, that's really weird, considering she's been dead a whole century now. I'm not into hauntings or ghosts, I'm really not. But when I visited the Cherokee museum where her father, the famous William Holland Thomas, was on exhibit for his many accomplishments, most notably saving the Cherokees from total removal from North Carolina, I began to wonder about his daughter, Angeline. She's the one from whom my husband is descended. The more I found out -- she's illegitimate, and half-Cherokee, half white (through Will, of course) -- the more I found that I didn't know. Mystery shrouds this woman. Because she is the illegitimate offspring, the legitimate family refers to her politely as "adopted". The timing of her "adoption" happens to coincide with the Cherokee Removal. Hmmm. Interesting that this white man, who himself had been adopted into the Cherokee tribe as an honorary member and was working almost around the clock to see that they were not removed from their rightful home, chose this time to bring his illegitimate daughter into his own home that he shared with his very virtuous mother. Was he fearful that she would be forced to go on the trail? And by the way, where was her own mother in all this?

All these questions swirled in my mind a couple of years ago when we visited North Carolina. I felt such a sense of . . . well, her . . . I felt an urgency to do something. I needed to tell her story.

The only thing was, I didn't know her story.

After months of frustrating research on a woman who was simply a name on a page, it occurred to me . . . why did I need her story? My questions provided a good framework for a story of my own invention. The skeleton of facts, with muscle, tissue, blood and breath born of fiction.

Thus, Green Corn and Porch Music was born.