To Brigid Elsken Galloway, Meg Waters Lambert, Blair Gatewood Norman, Kathleen Albritton Fittro, Margaret Bryan French, and Sevgi, thank you for sharing your memories and lives with me. I am honored by the generous, enthusiastic way you each responded to this project, and the eighteen months we have spent laughing and crying over your stories has deepened our friendship as well as the love and respect I have for you all.
I owe special gratitude to you, Brigid, for not only reading and commenting on many of my first drafts, but also for discovering HomeFront and its wonderful ArtSpace gallery online, the source of the paintings in this book. As you wrote to me so many years ago: thank you, my true and constant friend.
Thank you, Loretta, for sharing your story with me. You are a woman of extraordinary strength and faith, as was your beautiful daughter Kela.
To my dear friend Alicia, thanks for your patient computer and technical help, and for being the keeper of my passwords, in so many ways.
To my dad, Hilton, thank you for running behind me until I pedaled fast enough, and then letting me fly. You are the best father in the world. And to my sons William, Duncan and Robert, and my brothers Jeff and David, I am grateful for your inspiration, support and love.
To my husband Rand, thank you for your steadfast belief in me, and for more than two and half decades of love, laughter, and surprises. You are brave, and you make me more so. I love you.
Finally, to Kate Hartson, my brilliant, insightful, and energetic editor at Hachette, I cannot begin to express the depth of my gratitude for your boundless encouragement and faith in this book. Working with you has truly been an experience I will remember forever, and I treasure your friendship.