The Mythic Appaloosa

By Maryann DiEdwardo and Patricia Pasda

American poet Emily Dickinson wrote: Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all.

In their latest book, Maryann DiEdwardo and Patricia Pasda continue their journey of hope and healing, both for themselves and for all those they touch. These award-winning artists and writers create deceptively simple books that gently expand our horizons, break down our inner walls, and open us to the beauty around us. Like Hollywood hero, Christopher Reeve, they have chosen hope so anythings possible. Those who have entered Maryann and Patricias world hope that they will never stop singing.

The Rev. Laura Thomas Howell, Obl.S.B. Trinity Episcopal Church Bethlehem, PA

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456887896

Maryann DiEdwardo

Journaling is a literary technique that ignite writers of any age. The writers use keen observation and remembrance. Maryann and Patti are authors and illustrators of non-fiction and fiction works acceptable for all ages. Their hands on art and writing books such as The Horse Keeper: The Healing Gifts of Painting and Writing about Horses are collections of remembrances based on nature with themes of horses and dogs as guides. Visit us at www.authorhouse.com/bookstore to read about our many works which include The Legacy of Katharine Hepburn, My Appaloosa, Inspiration Through Writing, The Art of Trees, Horses about Hope, Writing Based on History, and a series of fiction works called Pennsylvania Voices which inspire through a combination of fact and fiction “to inform and entertain” according to local librarian Gloria Bellas.

Book preview

The Mythic Appaloosa,

Short Stories

A Story about Immigrants of Pennsylvania

Maryann DiEdwardo and Patricia Pasda

Copyright © 2011 by Maryann DiEdwardo and Patricia Pasda.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011904343

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4568-8788-9

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4568-8787-2

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4568-8789-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

94389

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Part I The Journal by Maryann

Part II Short Stories by Maryann and Patti

Dedicated to those who believe that poverty can be and shall be crushed by the glory of God and those who love. The Mythic Appaloosa is book 2 of our Pennsylvania Voices Transforming Poverty Series. Multigenerational, multicultural, our book is themed with a myriad of characters who represent poverty in her dimensional weave of sorrow.

Hear us, oh Yahweh.

The sounds of pain resound as we remember our elders who fought and died for freedom.

Characters

Jonathan. 1836-1936

Joan 1843-1873

Quilin 1836-1926

Daighre. 1846-1906

Elon 1856-1950

Lily 1873-1960

The Mythic Appaloosa

Overcoming poverty

Maryann DiEdwardo

Poverty

can be and shall be crushed

by the Glory of God and those who love.

The Muse of Calliope

illustrates the pain and

sorrow of Jonathan

as he lost Joan to an early

death but bears the pain

only to become blind due

to starvation when

he was a child in

Ireland during the

Potato Famine of the 19th century.

Eighteen Forty-five, cries of fear of death

Real loss of life and loved ones as we lost

our potato crop and kin, starvation

came by day and night. Ireland lost one

million of us. Famine did not care who we were.

The fire held her hand tightly;

Guardian angels brought her light,

And made her future days bright ’til

Her body failed to breathe during

The childbirth that she prayed for but

Such woes grieve Jonathan; his sword

Died with Joan on a blissful day

yet the trees sway and the wind blows

She dies while the wind blows softly

Her death brings the ancestors

Who cry as well

We cry for all our loved ones

Writing Between Rivers

Writing Between Rivers

Introduction

by Maryann DiEdwardo

In 2011, Patti and I published our first juvenile fiction novel entitled The Passing Light. We decided to continue to research and write on the same characters in a second book that is now The Mythic Appaloosa, a set of short stories based on the five years of study and contemplation about a young man and woman coming of age and a view of the human condition centering upon the trials and suffering of those who lived in Ireland during the Great Hunger. Children who live in poverty actually think differently. Cultural disconnections occur when children are exposed to violence such as those children who experience war or results of violent actions of those around them. Through research and writing, I have made discoveries about my own ancestry as the myths of the 20th century. My own family hid truths about my ancestry to protect me from harm.

Four million Irish people, between 1850 and 1930, found their way to American soil from Ireland in boats and were packed so tightly with horrid sanitary conditions that many perished on the trip. In 1848, orphans Jonathan and Joan who lost their parents and brother due to the great famine fever, typhus, dysentery, and scurvy with thousands of other starving Irish people, pack into the steerage sections of a boat to endure the horrors of transatlantic voyage in cramped, ill-ventilated and unsanitary conditions. Their collie, Autumn, gets on the boat, but when they arrive Autumn vanishes only to reunite with Jonathan in America. Both meet wonderful companions, learn to love again after brutal childhoods and marry. Themes of poverty and abuse, tragic famines, early deaths, and a lack of dignity for all of life surround the main characters as they try to form and find ways to be American. With a twenty-first century storyteller who relates the tales from a diary, the authors create a novel that bears the pain and truth of three centuries to reach out to readers about the need for social