Marcella's Secret Dreams and Stories: A Mother's Legacy

by Barbara Brabec, Marcella Eliza Schaumburg

Overview

Did you ever look at your parents and wonder what kind of romantic relationship they had when they first met? Ever learn something about your mother or father that was so surprising you couldn’t believe the topic had never come up for discussion before?

Sometimes it can take a lifetime for all the pieces of a puzzle to come together. It took Barbara Brabec more than twenty years to finally see the whole picture and decide to write this book about her mother’s life and legacy for the family—and also to inspire others to write a memoir.

Eight years before she died, Marcella—Barbara’s mother—wrote the story of her life in a private memoir for her three daughters and brother. Typed on the manual Smith Corona typewriter Barbara had used in high school, it contained surprising historical facts and delightful never-told-before family tales, revealing Marcella as a gifted writer and storyteller. But what the memoir didn’t mention were Marcella’s unrealized secret dreams as a 16-year-old girl.

Barbara would not learn about them until her mother was in the last four years of her life. On that life-changing day, she gave Barbara a bundle of papers and letters that made her jaw drop, put her head in a spin, and showed her a secret side of her mother that no one in the family had ever seen before. Marcella thought she was just an ordinary woman, wife, and mother, but in truth she was quite extraordinary for her times.

Now Barbara has artfully woven together the memoirs of two authors—a book within a book—to tell a true-life story of three generations of a Midwestern farming family going back to the 1880s. The authentic dialogue, stories, and unusual collection of letters in this book offer a mixture of history, humor, drama, and pathos.

In completing the story of Marcella’s inspiring life and accomplishments with present-day reflections from her sisters, Barbara illustrates the importance of their mother’s legacy to the family and challenges readers to think about the life story only they can tell—one that should be shared with their family and perhaps the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780985633325
Publisher:	Barbara Brabec Productions
Publication date:	01/05/2018
Pages:	340
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

BARBARA BRABEC has been a homebased self-employed writer and publisher for most of her adult life. Her writing and publishing career, which began in 1971, has evolved through the years. Between 1980 and 2000, she gained recognition as one of North America's best-known home-business writers and speakers. During those years she wrote, edited, and published a subscription home-business news¬letter, self-published two books, and worked with trade publishers who wanted new books as well as revised editions of her earlier books. Two of her eight trade books-Creative Cash and Homemade Money-were decades-long best sellers and classics in their individual fields.

She launched BarbaraBrabec.com in 2000. When widowed in 2005 after nearly 44 years of marriage, she reinvented herself on the Web to move in new directions as a book manuscript editor and author's consultant. The publication of THE DRUMMER DRIVES! in 2010 launched her as a memoirist and storyteller. She is now limiting editorial work to give her more time for writing and pub¬lishing her own books, but she remains active in critiquing book manuscripts and author-publisher book contracts. She particularly enjoys consulting with first-time authors to help them successfully self-publish a memoir or any other book dear to their heart. Her website offers many helpful articles for writers and independent book publishers.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

PART ONE: Marcella’s Upbringing and Marriage (1904–1935)

Chapter 1: A Farm Family’s Life in the Twenties

Chapter 2: The Birth of a Writer

Chapter 3: Teaching: A Career Goal in the Thirties

Chapter 4: A Love Story Unfolds in Bill’s Letters

PART TWO: Marcella and Bill—Work and Family (1935–1968)

Chapter 5: Farming with Calluses and No Cash

Chapter 6: Building a House and Business a Little at a Time

Chapter 7: Changing Jobs, Raising Kids, Exploring the Country

Chapter 8: Entrepreneur and Empty Nester

PART THREE: Marcella’s New Work and Challenges (1968–1981)

Chapter 9: Back to School for a New Career at 55

Chapter 10: Living Life with Serene Acceptance

Chapter 11: Making Hard Decisions and Lasting Memories

Chapter 12: Marcella’s Revealing Diaries

Chapter 13: A Day in the Life of Nurse Marcella

PART FOUR: Marcella’s Last Years (1982–1992)

Chapter 14: The Long Goodbye

Chapter 15: Remembering a Sweet Daddy

Chapter 16: A Lonely House without Bill

Chapter 17: Dealing with Grief and Life Losses

Chapter 18: Years Dwindling Down to a Precious Few

Chapter 19: A Glorious Send-Off

PART FIVE: The Rest of the Story (Present Day)

Chapter 20: Reprise

Chapter 21: Buckley, Illinois: A Good Place to Live

Chapter 22: Marcella’s Wit and Wisdom

Chapter 23: Legacy for Three Daughters

Chapter 24: Backstory: Digging for Details

Afterword: On the Importance of Letters

Three Sisters’ Bios

Family Tree

Author’s Website and Contact Information

Index 9