Full Circle: A Life Story
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Mae Miller, suffering an aneurysm-induced coma, lies in a hospital bed. Clarence, her husband of fifty-four years, is at her side. For Mae, this is only one of many times she has had to battle death, beginning with the loss of her mother and infant brother to a tornado that tore their small tenant farmhouse apart. The tornado ripped seven-year-old Mae’s infant brother from her arms and ripped a hole in her heart. Years later, drought devastates the family farm and drives a wedge between a teen-aged Mae and her dad. Mae moves west to live with her grown sister.
Clarence, a sharecropper’s son, is driven to not be a hard, cruel man like his dad. Again and again, life throws obstacles his way that test his resolve. Clarence, faced with the choice of moving back to the hated family farm and his cruel father or finding work elsewhere, migrates west to work under the desert sun.Mae and Clarence meet in the cotton fields of Arizona in 1938 and marry soon after. Together they raise a family while tackling life’s obstacles head-on.
Full Circle has all the pathos and sorrow of a John Steinbeck novel surrounded by the full fury of an Oklahoma tornado. Out of the conflagration, the Miller family finds their way through over fifty years of dust and dirt and an uncertain future.
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​Read a Sample of Full CIrcle: A Life Story ~ SAMPLE
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Inspiration behind Full Circle: A Life Story ~ As Mae and Clarence Miller's first grandchild, I grew up very close to them. My grandpa was a gifted story teller. I spent many hours of my childhood listening to him talk of how he and granny met. And of the life they built together. When I was young, grandpa was a sand pump boat operator for Dolese in Oklahoma. I often went with him, and occasionally granny would come along with us, to one of the Dolese lakes to fish. I spent many hours listening to his stories while we waited for fish to bite. Those are some of my favorite memories of my maternal grandparents.
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I was in my first semester of my senior year at Oklahoma City University when my granny suffered an aneurysm bleed in her brain. When I received the call, I rushed to the hospital. I got there as the ambulance pulled up with her. I sat with her in a tiny curtained cubicle while we waited for a doctor. She slipped into a coma before the doctor or any other family members arrived. Before lapsing into the coma, she told me what had happened and how it felt. After my granny passed away a few months later in 1993, I got the idea to write their life story, beginning with their childhoods and ending when I was a year old. I decided to weave the story of how my granny died around the story of their past.
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My research of life in the cotton camps of Arizona in the late 1930's revealed how rough life was for the poor. Something my grandpa never spoke about. Also, he had never explained why my granny refused to have her children in the cotton camps. I got the answer when I interviewed my grandpa in his nursing home. I give that explanation in the book.
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I told my grandpa I was writing a book about him and granny. I said I had some questions to ask of him. My interview was conducted with grandpa in his wheelchair parked in the doorway of his room. I sat on the floor, leaning against the wall across the hall, yellow legal pad and pen in hand. I brought with me a list of questions that would help me fill in the gaps in my knowledge of their lives. We talked for a couple hours. I filled 6 legal length pages with notes.
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A few days before my grandpa passed away in 2002, I told him the book was done. I told him I wrote it as a Historical Romance novel. He asked me to use their real names. I did and all of the events depicted happened.