1
October 2012
just
a start but I have to start organizing somehow
NOTES
ON POSSIBLE STRUCTURE OF ORNERY PEOPLE
After
checking family names in the Mountain Meadows Massacre yesterday and learning
that some of my Coker cousins were among the murdered, it occurs to me that in
ORNERY PEOPLE I might have a structure of
episode
+ aftermath [very short: a coda]
Then
I could have the settlement of North Central Arkansas by the Cokers and (as
coda) the loss of several of the grandchildren and great grandchildren in the
massacre.
Then
I could have the joyous arrival of the Richardson wagon train in Lauderdale
County, Alabama around 1820 and the sacrifice of the children and grandchildren
in the war (look at the gravestones!), starting with that youth who recalled
how vibrant he had been on the long trip.
I
would not always have an “episode + sad
aftermath” structure, I hope. But this could be a way of structuring the book,
not ever going much past the middle of the 20th century.
The
Simms Settlement has to be an episode. Would Barksville be part of the episode
and not a coda? Yes. Maybe Absalom’s going back could be the coda, or Grizel’s
triumphant remarriage to a Revolutionary hero.
The
Ewart clan (Ewart, Knox, Bell, Johnston, Price, and more) fighting at King’s
Mountain has to be an episode: the locals joining the Overmountain men. What
would the coda be? Aunt Margaret’s ride the day after the battle? No. The
determined efforts to acknowledge the family by a connection, C. L. Hunter, in
his Centennial book?
Maybe
the thing to do is to try this out on a dozen episodes and see how it works.
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