Since 1987 I have written three unpublished novels and attempted one suspense, but this was the only novel I ever intended to write. It also became by far the most difficult to research. I mistakenly thought I'd simply write a family history based on the Civil War letters and stories handed down throughout the generations. Little did I know the historical research would become so involved. The more I uncovered, the more fascinated I became and the more the story began to mentally take form . . . and require more research.

My mother Jeanette (referred to as Jeanne in the Prologue) always encouraged my writing endeavors and this project in particular. It was the reason she took me to St. Louis in 1992 and why she told me so much of her childhood. She loved St. Louis and was proud of her heritage though she truthfully knew little more than what her granny had told her as she sat upon her lap. Thus, her vision of Lara's Legacy was to open the book with her sitting on her granny's lap and bring it to a close with my daughter sitting on her lap.

As I've researched and read over the years to prepare for this novel, I've been inspired and awed by the talents of historical writers such as James Alexander Thom, John Jakes, Jan de Hartog and so many others who bring the past to life with such knowledge and grace. I fall short of their greatness, indeed, but attempt to write with my heart and do justice to our heritage by telling the story as it was - without exaggeration and in character with members of our family as they journeyed through America's history. -pdp

Part I - Begins in 1810 shortly after Joshua Pilcher's father has died in Lexington. He leaves home for Nashville where he takes up the trade of hatter and after the great quake and War of 1812 he removes to St. Louis. There Joshua becomes a fur trader with the Missouri Fur Co., and thereafter succeeds Manuel Lisa and later William Clark as superintendent of Indian Affairs. This portion will include his trading and trapping, his early associations with the prominent families of early St. Louis as well as letters between Joshua and Clark, reports to the government on the Indian affairs, and his life among the Omaha’s where he fathered a child which was raised by Big Elk. It closes with Joshua’s elaborate funeral in 1843.

Part II - Begins shortly after the death of Joshua at Senator Benton's home in St. Louis. Opens in Springfield, Illinois where Joshua’s uncle Ezekiel, just ten years his junior, is residing with his wife and their nine children, including two sets of twins. Ezekiel, who is a carpenter has made several pieces of furniture for the lawyer Abe Lincoln. The wives of the two men, Louisa (Ballard) and Mary (Todd) are friends and mutually acquainted with many of the same families. This portion will tell of their lives, Lincoln’s early career and the growing unrest and politics of the young country.

Part III - Opens with Louisa’s move to St. Louis with her younger children after the death of her husband in 1858. Here her youngest daughter meets Thomas Moore and a week after their marriage, Tom goes off to fight for the Union. They exchange letters during the war until he is shot and left for dead on the fourth of July. After recovering in a Memphis hospital for months, he returns to his beloved Clarissa and they begin their family. Having tended to Tom and hearing of how her Uncle Joshua had tended the Indians when they had smallpox, she takes an interest in medicine and becomes a Homeopathic doctor in 1898.

Part IV - Begins shortly after the death of Clarissa. Her widowed husband Tom is now left with three young daughters still at home, the youngest not quite three years of age. Eight year-old daughter Mamie will be caretaker of her father, who although he works as a carpenter, has sustained disabilities from the war. While her sisters go on to further their own education, Mamie cares for her Papa. Only after his death, when she is a spinster aged thirty-five, does she marry the divorced Clarence Lane. As with his first family, he leaves her and his son and she is left to provide for him on her own working at the city sanitarium as a nurse's assistant. Her only joy becomes her granddaughter Jeanne and the stories she recalls to her of her "Mama & Papa."

Epilogue - Begins in Phoenix, Arizona in 1989 with Jeanne rocking her young granddaughter as she begins to tell her about Granny Mae and the wonderful city of St. Louis where she grew up and where her family had lived for so many years.