Beneath the Honeysuckle Vine

by McClure, Marcia Lynn

  You might be wondering why I’m spending so much time babbling on about my Gone with the Wind experience. Well, it was Gone with the Wind that planted my passion for Civil War history deep into the very core of my heart. Once I’d read the book and seen the movie, I was ravenous for Civil War history knowledge—especially Southern history. The South intrigued me—not simply because I couldn’t understand the whole ignorant thought process around slavery and how it could have ever existed but because of the customs, the fashions, the architecture, the easy, relaxed manner of culture, the Spanish moss and cypress trees, Reconstruction, industrialization, and so much more. Thus, it was my passion for Civil War history and the people that lived through that terrible conflict that led me to writing not only The Fragrance of Her Name but also this book—Beneath the Honeysuckle Vine.

  Beneath the Honeysuckle Vine is a soul-written book for me—meaning it incorporates feelings, opinions, and emotions that my very soul has experienced over and over through the years. Though all my books were birthed in my heart, some of them go deeper than that, and Beneath the Honeysuckle Vine is one of those.

  Ironically, where readers are concerned, it’s not my most popular book. It seems readers either love it and list it in their top favorites or they list it at the very bottom of their list. In conversation with people who own different opinions of the story, I’ve come to this conclusion: those who love this book, whose hearts it touches so deeply, love it for its historical value and nostalgic sense of a time we could never empathize with. They recognize the sort of love borne through heart-felt letters and not just visual or physical attraction. It’s an old-school concept, lost to time and technology. The other side of the coin (for those who don’t list this book as a favorite) is that Beneath the Honeysuckle Vine begins with a sense of sadness, struggling and wounded bodies and souls. Furthermore, in regard to the love letters between Johnny and Vivianna, as one reviewer on one of the social networks said, “I felt they needed a better reason to fall in love.” (Yep! I can be inspired by negative things just as well as positive things—sometimes!) I’m not offended that some readers do not like this book as well, because if anyone understands wanting everything to be pretty and happy, it’s me! And I know that the human interest in history isn’t as prolific as it was, or should be. Therefore, Beneath the Honeysuckle Vine certainly appeals more to some readers than to others.

  Now the other big part of this story that is very significant in my own life history is the letter writing between Johnny and Vivianna. To the reader who thought they needed “a better reason to fall in love” (and I really loved writing that book, by the way, so I thank you, whoever you are, for that line that inspired me!), what she didn’t know was that part of the plot was based on my own falling-in-love story.

  My husband (Kevin from Heaven) and I did meet in person, but shortly thereafter, I left to attend college out of state. (Some of you already know this story, so sorry for the repeat.) Back in the olden days of 1983–1984, card and letters were still the main technique of correspondence, other than landline telephones (which would often cost $1 per minute long distance). Thus, Kevin and I began exchanging letters. For nearly ten months, during which I was in a different state, we wrote back and forth, discussing everything from what we’d had for lunch to information about our families. Almost immediately, however, our letters took on a very romantic tone. We were writing what might be called “serious but with a teasing delivery”—the first part of the letter being an attempt to write romance to one another, with the second part of the letter being about everyday thoughts, experiences, and feelings.

  Being that people will often say things in letters that they would be too afraid to confess or say face-to-face, Kevin and I were able to get to know each other in a way that most people don’t. Although we were definitely attracted to each other the instant we met (wildly so, I might add), we found that through our letters, there was an even deeper connection that we might not have experienced as early as we did otherwise. To this day, our letters to each other are one of my most treasured earthly possessions. Fraught with scandalous flirting, humor, and drama, those letters tell the story of our falling in love—and they are a profound insight and inspiration.

  Interestingly enough, my daughter and her husband had a similar experience. Having met at college, they found themselves in different states during the summer break. Texting was their letters, and then they talked on the phone every Sunday for, like, eight hours (and that’s not an exaggeration)! Therefore, similar to the story of Kevin and me, Sandy and her heroic Soren were already in love by the time they returned to college. But where Kevin and I waited an entire two weeks after we were finally together in body as well as spirit, Sandy and Soren waited almost a whole month! Ha ha!

  My son Mitch and his wife, Mallory, also had the beginnings of their romance through letters via e-mail during their separation. Actually, their story is even more incredible—for they’d never even met in person when they began e-mailing! But once they met (and I’ll never forget the look on my son’s face the first time he sat in the same room with Mallory)—well, the rest is history! They met in person for the first time the very end of March and were engaged by the very beginning of April.

  And so, my own experience is where I found the inspiration for the letter writing between Vivianna and Johnny—their means of falling in love. It was a common way to fall in love all through history—if you were given the choice to fall in love, that is.

  It breaks my heart to know that letters and cards (correspondence via tangible mail) are vanishing things. People do not realize what is being lost, I’m afraid. Just the other day, I heard a statistic that in ten years children will have no idea what receiving a birthday card in the mail is like. That makes me so sad! Especially when I remember receiving that unexpected birthday card—a handwritten note from my grandma or grandpa inside and the ever-impressive two-dollar bill enclosed. It was wonderful! I still love receiving mail, though letters and cards are very few and very far between. We will live to regret the day personally written letters are lost forever. It takes time and thought to sit down and handwrite a card or letter. E-mails are not the same.

  There’s a quote I love. It was included on the cover of a little folio of Victorian notecards a friend gave me some years ago. I’m actually going to have it framed for display in my home very soon. But it says so much—expresses such a deep and meaningful truth—a truth that will be lost to technology and time. It’s an excerpt from the Royal Gallery, 1897, and reads thus:

  Never burn kindly written letters; it is so pleasant to read them over when the ink is brown, the paper yellow with age, and the hands that traced the friendly words are folded over the heart that prompted them. Keep all loving letters. Burn only the harsh ones, and in burning, forgive and forget them.

  The line, “It is so pleasant to read them over when the ink is brown, the paper yellow with age, and the hands that traced the friendly words are folded over the heart that prompted them,” is so affecting to me. I think of my sweet grandmother (Opal Switzler States)—her mortal remains now resting in a quiet, beautiful space in Canyon City, Colorado, her once warm and gentle hands still folded over the place where her heart used to beat—and whenever I read one of her letters I can envision her sweet smile and her still warm and gentle hands waving to me from the peace and happiness of heaven. Without the letters she’d written that I now have, that helped me to see into her thoughts and heart, I wouldn’t know her as well as I do, and I wouldn’t have a tangible something written in her very own pretty little script, explaining feelings, memories, and the prices of shortening and eggs in 1936. The world is losing something profound in giving up letters to e-mails and texting. It haunts me to my very core, and I feel sad for she who thought Johnny and Vivianna needed “a better reason to fall in love”—because she’ll never know that manner of expressing emotion: the love letter.

  Another thing that I did choose to include in this book is a little
more gruesomeness—and I chose to include it for the mere fact that we, in this country and in this day and age, are spoiled rotten when it comes to physical hardships the like endured by men and women during the Civil War. Believe me, Johnny’s descriptions of his time in Andersonville do not begin to convey the true horrors of it all! And as much as I believe we all need escape through fluff and romance and things that don’t tax our already overtaxed minds, I do believe that once in a while, we need to remember what our ancestors endured and be more consciously respectful and grateful for it, and for them. I won’t hop up on my political soapbox, but I will say that Americans have forgotten what it is to suffer for the freedoms we enjoy. Most of us didn’t even have to experience a war on the scale of World War II. Furthermore, the men and women who fight to protect our freedoms and the freedoms of other—the media skirts them, disrespects them, and would have us forget what they’re enduring. Therefore, once in a while, I feel the need to remind and remember.

  And now I’ll leave the sad stuff behind and push forward with a little insight into some other things about Beneath the Honeysuckle Vine. First of all, I certainly hope that everyone out there had the opportunity as a child (or adult) to sip the nectar from honeysuckle. What a wonderful childhood memory that is for me! The hours we’d spend sitting in our backyard, plucking honeysuckle blossoms and carefully picking them apart to finally enjoy that one tiny little droplet of nectar! Oh, I miss those carefree childhood days, don’t you? Tadpoles hold the same mesmerizing wonder for me and were an indispensable part of my childhood too—thus the tadpole and pollywog scene in the book.

  And then there’s the bone collection of Nate, Willy, and eventually Lowell. Well, you know the side of my family that is intrigued with black widow spiders? That same side of the family likes anything interesting and gruesome—including bones! My favorite “family bone” story is one that I wasn’t aware of until just a few years ago. Now, I may or may not have already told you this story in another Author’s Note, but since I can’t remember off the top of my head, here it comes either way.

  I have these two really cool uncles, Uncle Wayne and Uncle Russell. You’ve met them before in Author’s Notes. Well, this story involves my Uncle Wayne as the hero. Way, way, way back (I believe it was the late ’60s), my Uncle Wayne and a friend of his were wandering along an old riverbed. Now, you must understand that Uncle Wayne has the eyes of a hawk! This is the guy who spotted a tarantula on the side of the road as he was driving home one pitch-black night from Canyon City and stopped to collect (being that he must’ve always had a jar in his trunk for just such occasions). Anyway, my hawk-eyed Uncle Wayne and his friend were roaming along this old riverbed when all at once Uncle Wayne looks up and sees a sort of spherical something slightly protruding from the dirt of riverbank wall. (The river was low, so the bank was vertically higher than normal.)

  Well, naturally Uncle Wayne reached out, digging his fingers around whatever the thing was. And lo and behold, what does he pull out but a human skull! That’s right, a human skull! Now, being that Uncle Wayne is as smart as he is hawk-eyed, he studied the riverbank awhile and surmised that the skull must be of Native American origin and very old. Nowadays, you’d be obligated to report this kind of a find to the state or something, but Uncle Wayne (being interested in all things natureish and scientific of any kind), simply kept the skull. Seriously. He just set it in his closet and hung onto it for years.

  Eventually, my uncles and my auntie (you remember Auntie from other stories, right?) all shared a house when they were in their twenties and none of them were yet married. This meant that Uncle Wayne moved all his stuff (including the skull) into Auntie’s place.

  Time passed, as it often does, Uncle Russell got married and moved out, then Uncle Wayne moved out, and then Auntie got married to my now Uncle Ken. Well, as you know, when you move, sometimes you leave things behind on accident, or intentionally if you don’t (especially if you’re not sure what to do with them). The skull must’ve been one of those things Uncle Wayne wasn’t sure what to do with because it ended up sitting on a shelf for a time before my Uncle Ken went downstairs and found it one day. Of course, he instantly went on a rant about how someone was going to come into the house and see a human skull and think he and my auntie were murderers or something. (He’s a funny man, always laughing, but the skull must’ve wigged him out—understandably.)

  So Auntie gave the skull back to my Uncle Wayne. But Uncle Wayne was still uncertain about what do with it or how to display it in his house, so he gifted it to a woman he was dating at the time who worked at a museum.

  My reaction to hearing what Uncle Wayne had eventually done with the skull was thus: “Are you crazy? You just gave it away? I would’ve loved to have had that!”

  Well, feeling regretful at that point, my Uncle Wayne soon sent me a mummified toad he’d found in his basement one year. So it all worked out for the best. I will never have to explain to anyone why there’s a human skull in my closet, and I added a mummified toad to my collection of rarities amassed thanks to my Uncle Wayne, grandparents, and mom. So in the end, all is right with the world.

  As a side note, my kids are the same way; I think most kids are. I remember the Thanksgiving when Mitch was about four or five and was so intrigued with the turkey bones that my mom boiled all the meat and remains off our Thanksgiving turkey, bleached the bones, dried them out, and put them in a shoebox, which she gave to Mitch for Christmas, I think. He was elated, and he and my mom spent several hours going through those old turkey bones. I love Christmas gifts like that!

  Anyway, I’ve always been intrigued with bones, dead animals, and so on—and so were Nate, Willy, and Lowell.

  Speaking of Lowell, I have to admit that he is one of my favorite secondary characters ever! He’ so funny—so brave and brazen too, to kiss Vivianna like that when he first met her! Many readers have written to me concerning their adoration of Lowell, and I am so touched, tenderhearted, and grateful that you all love him as much as I do. He’s such a little dickens, and I love him!

  I love this book! It springs from something embedded deep within my soul, and whether or not it’s a favorite of yours, I do hope you enjoyed it. At least the kissing was good, right? (Winky wink!)

  Beneath the Honeysuckle Vine Trivia Snippets

  Snippet #1—Guess what my major was in college? Yep, that’s it! For practical reasons (at the time), I majored in Secretarial Science. However, my minor was in something I loved—history!

  Snippet #2—The Alabama First Cavalry was a real cavalry unit, not one I made up. The Alabama First Cavalry comprised rich men, poor men, black men, and white men who were loyal to the Union, even for the fact they were Alabamians, and volunteered for service. Southerners who fought for the Union were called Southern Unionists and were viciously persecuted by loyal Confederates. In fact, you may or may not be aware that more than one in ten southerners who fought in the Civil War enlisted in and fought for the Union Army. And with the exception of South Carolina, every Confederate state raised at least one Union battalion. Interestingly enough, you don’t often hear about all the southerners who abhorred slavery during the Civil War, and I think that is a distortion in reporting true history.

  Snippet #3—Now, at the risk of leaving you on a little of a melancholy note, I’ve decided to really stick my neck out and share something very personal. Years and years ago, I woke up one morning after having a very vivid dream—a dream of a story in the form of a poem. The dream was so powerful that I immediately wrote down the poem I had dreamed. Now, could I have had a Stephanie Meyer type dream that turned into a multimillion-dollar franchise? Nope. I just had a dream about two brothers—two Civil War soldiers. It’s not anything profound, and it is very melancholy, so if you’re feeling down or not in the mood for an emotional journey, you can skip it and go right to the teaser chapter for The Fragrance of Her Name. But since it does have something to do with my inspiration for this book (even just a little), I thought I’
d share it now. The brothers in this poem struggled with exactly the same emotions that Robert E. Lee did—a love for the South and his home but a disgust for the evil of slavery. It’s something we will never understand or have to endure, thank heaven, but many of our ancestors did, and perhaps it was just given to me for that reason. Again, it’s a sappy little ditty, so if you’re not in the mood, that’s fine. Just grab some chocolate and a season of your favorite TV series on DVD and have at it instead! But for anyone who may be interested, here it is—a powerful dream I once had when my mind wasn’t so smushy.

  Donnin’ the Gray

  By Marcia Lynn McClure

  He wore the gray when he passed away at a ripe ol’ hundred and one.

  He donned the gray, and was buried that way in 1941.

  He said, “Don’t grieve,” before he went. “I’m more’ n happy to go.

  I’ll go where my brother was early sent ’round ’bout eighty years ago.

  “I know I’ve told you before,” he said, “at one time or another,

  And I’ll tell you again on my own deathbed, ’bout my own departed twin brother.

  “That ol’ war ’tween the states, son, it jest had to be to put this great country at rest.

  And we know’d it, son, brother Joe and me, an’ we know’d we’d be leavin’ the nest.