Former Welti native, Charlotte Thomas March, will be one of 10 authors at this year's annual Moulton Reading in the Garden on Oct. 18.
When Charlotte Thomas March was growing up in the farming community of Welti, she wasn’t thinking of writing a book about it someday, but just the same, she stored up memories of the place that always remained close to her heart. She remembered the little lane leading up to the house where her family lived, even when she was in the wilds of Bangladesh, or working in an ER in Birmingham during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, she never forgot her roots in Welti.
The daughter of Homer Dewy Thomas and Mamie Esther Scheinert Thomas, March graduated from Fairview High School in 1960. Like many Cullman natives, her ancestors were of German heritage.
“My great-grandfather came to America at the urging of Col. Cullmann, not among the first wave, but sometime in the late 1870s or early 1880s,” said March. “My grandfather was 2 years old when the family came to join my great-grandfather. My grandmother's family, also from Germany, came earlier.”
March attended Welti from the first through ninth grades and recalls it as a beautiful, picturesque white building. “I believe as good an education was provided there as could be had anywhere. I have incredibly wonderful memories of those days,” she said.
“Because we lived in the county, shopping in ‘town’ was often a day-long event. I remember many ice cream sodas at People's Drug Store, shopping in stores with such familiar names as Stiefelmeyer’s, Ponder's and Watson's Bargain Basement. Summer memories from early childhood are filled with meeting friends at the Cullman public swimming pool (I can still smell it) and stopping at the Dairy Queen on the way home for lemonade,” March recalled fondly.
March earned a degree in nursing at the University Hospital School of Nursing where she spent three wonderful years. “It was a fabulous time and place and you will read many of my experiences there in book two,” she hinted.
She met Cary, her husband, while in college. The couple settled in his hometown of Mobile and began a family. The Marches had three children in three years. “For about five years I was some combination of pregnant, breast feeding and washing diapers,” she laughed.
She had many jobs in the medical profession; as an ER nurse in Birmingham at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, as a midwife in a refugee camp in Bangladesh and as a home health nurse in the mountainous regions of northern Pakistan. Working with people from all walks of life, she learned compassion, and was a part of things that she would never have witnessed had she stayed home where it was safe and predictable.
“Cary and I began to long for something in our lives with a deeper meaning. In 1979, our church's mission in Bangladesh needed a business manager. There was also a clinic being run in a refugee camp in need of a nurse. We wanted to be part of that and in that way I suppose one could say that we felt ‘called",’ said March. “I worked as a midwife in the camp, where I met and loved many women whom I felt such a deep connection with.”
Once again, an opportunity arose for the Marches, this time with a non-church based organization. The primary job was for Cary, as business manager of a small, international Christian boarding school in the foothills of the Himalayas. “I filled in as a nurse at the school in the absence of the school nurse, but my experience was much more as a community resource, visiting patients at home in isolated mountain areas to provide direct care, or providing access to care.”
The March children were 4, 6 and 7 when they left for Bangladesh; 14, 16 and 17 when they left for Pakistan.
March says that these experiences gave them a unique prospective on the commonality of the human condition, which she adeptly weaves into her first novel, “Jubal Leatherbury.” Although the book is set in and around Mobile and New Orleans, she says that the universal appeal of the characters will be familiar to anyone.
“Jubal Leatherbury” is the first volume of a two-part set that was published in March 2015. The sequel was released several months later. “Book one is set in Mobile and New Orleans, in the late 1800s and early 1900s,” said March. “Book two is set in a fictional town in north Alabama. Cullman, Gadsden and the Little River Canyon area are featured largely in the story, both geographically and historically.
“My memories of growing up there certainly helped flesh out the story,” she said. “In fact, the Eisenberg House in the story is my grandparent’s house and the book’s cover photo is reminiscent of the old winding country lane leading up to our family property in Welti.”
It took her 10 years to write the book, which is categorized as literary fiction because it didn’t fit any specific genre. “Although it is fiction, it is historically accurate. I think it could be described as a southern family saga,” said March.
March spent hours researching, tackling it as if it were a full-time job. Up in the morning, down to the library and sticking with it until the end of the day, she says writing was mixed in with research.
“When writing dominated I responded more to mood than to the clock. When I was in the mood to write, time wasn’t a factor. I couldn’t wait to get in my chair and get an idea down while it was fresh,” she laughed.
“I think what I liked most while I was writing was the wonderfully creative outlet of clothing my thoughts with words. But there was also the overarching hope that what I was writing would bring about good.”
In retrospect, March says that her book tells a story that is entertaining and also in some way helps one to better understand the human heart.
Charlotte Thomas March is one of 10 authors who will be speaking on Oct.18 at Moulton’s Reading in the Garden. For more information and directions, visit http://qrne.ws/readinginthegarden or email info@lawrencecpl.org.
For more on March’s novels, see www.juballeatherbury.com.
Copyright 2016 Humble Roots, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
