From the Melting of the Snow to the Greening of the Fields

From the Melting of the Snow to the Greening of the Fields is my sixth book. It is the story of the St. Patrick's Day Flood of 1936 as seen through the experiences of the fictitious Claymoore family and their friends and acquaintances. The fictional Reverend Claymoore is a coal miner and a Presbyterian preacher who lives in the coal patch of the Back Bench Mining Company disparagingly known as Bed Bug Row. The story takes place in just a few months during the year of 1936. It is about the flood, yes, and about love and courtship and about the people of southwest Pennsylvania who constantly find themselves, as the speech goes, opposing a sea of troubles in an effort to end them. The things they do to rise above their circumstances are simple, unselfconscious, and even at times heroic. However you see their actions, whether audacious and noble, sad or comical, you must know that they are always, to my knowledge, typical. The facts of the flood are true as reported in the 1936 issues of The Pittsburgh Press, which was my primary source of information. Also included in the accounts of the flood are personal recollections from the few people I could find who lived through it.