A Tiny Piece of Sky

by Shawn K. Stout

  Although Frankie, Joan, and Elizabeth, as well as Hermann and Mildred Baum, are inspired by real people and grounded in real world events, these characters—and all of the other characters in this novel—and their situations are products of my own imagination.

  I began thinking about writing this book long ago, after my grandmother died. We were cleaning out her apartment and found letters in a drawer addressed to Albert Beck from several civic organizations about the rumors of espionage. These letters were all dated January 1938, incidentally, well before the war began in Europe. When I read them, I knew then that this was a story I needed to write. Because those letters were, for me, where the story began, I chose to include them in this book exactly as they were written.

  One other piece of history included in this story is the episode of The Shadow that Frankie listens to with her grandmother. I did take liberties with its air date, though. That particular episode aired in December of 1938.

  Albert Beck died a few years after the boycott, not a few weeks after, as written in this novel. But after his death, my grandmother, with the help of her three daughters, continued to run the business and watched it truly become what Albert hoped it would be—an eating place of wide renown.

  Acknowledgments

  For me, writing is often a long journey, through places that are sometimes pleasant and sometimes dark and terrible. It’s while in those dark and terrible places that I am most grateful for the lightkeepers who helped show me the way out of the woods: Patricia Beard, Heidi Potterfield, Erin Loomis, Elisabeth Dahl, Elissa Brent Weissman, Carol Lynch Williams, Cynthia Leitich Smith, Greg Leitich Smith, and Annemarie O’Brien.

  Thanks to Jill Santopolo, my incomparable editor, who pointed me in the right direction, handed me the map, and made sure I didn’t get lost. Thanks also to Talia Benamy and everyone else at Philomel who had a hand in shepherding this book along the way.

  My agent, Sarah Davies, believed I could find my way if I told a story from my heart. Thank you, Sarah.

  At the beginning of the road were Vermont College of Fine Arts faculty and students who saw early drafts of this book and gave me a pat on the head and told me to keep going, even when my feet were tired: Tim Wynne-Jones, Alan Cumyn, Ellen Howard, Gene Brenek, and Allyson Valentine-Schrier.

  Thanks to Nancy Pope, curator and historian at the National Postal Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, for helping me figure out how long it would take for letters from Hagerstown to arrive in York, Pennsylvania, in 1939. Several days, as it turns out. Gratitude also goes to Dan Letchworth, copy editor supreme, for correcting all my mistakes and then some. Great snakes, you are dee-vine.

  My family went on their own journey down memory lane as I wrote this book, whether they wanted to or not, and graciously answered my many, many questions about their life in the 1930s, about my grandparents, and about that little place called Beck’s: my mom, MaryAnn and Big Paul Mundey, Millie Heinbaugh, Charles Heinbaugh, and Shirley Shirey. For that, I am indebted.

  And speaking of family, I would not have been able to write even one single word of this book if it weren’t for the lives of Mildred and Albert A. Beck and that wonderful restaurant they ran for so many years.

  Most especially, thank you to my husband, Andy, and my daughter, Opal, for love. What a journey this has turned out to be.

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