America 250
Dear Reader, This is the last newsletter before America's 250th, so I want to spend it on the ancestor who started all of this for me — the first patriot I was ever able to actually prove was mine. You know him already. Captain Edward Beeson , my fourth great grandfather, the patriot I wrote Fading Light for. With the 4th right on top of us, I keep going back to a few passages from that book. So today, instead of another round of research, I want to just sit with some of his story — and his family's — for a minute. Here's how I put it in the author's note: "Some people celebrate anniversaries with cake. I wrote a book. Captain Edward Beeson is my fourth great grandfather. When I discovered I could join the Daughters of the American Revolution through him, I made it my mission to write this novel in his honor before America's 250th anniversary." Every Beeson in that book is real. The births, the marriages, the battles — they all came out of actual milita...