The Veranda

By Bettie MacIntyre

A book of short stories set in the lush Green Mountains of Vermont. In the quaint village of Bristol, Lois grew up riding her mare Bessey over Plank Road, through the hayfields to Hogback Mountain. She would lay against her, write poems about nature and her love of God. The stories in this book explore her adventures into womanhood.

 

 

Lois ministered to the homeless, and was an 11th hour Pastor for the Hospice. She visited the Veterans Hospital and sat through many long nights with lonely veterans crying in pain. She would say it gave them comfort to have a grandmother holding their hand. She would say it gave them comfort to have a grandmother hold their hand.

 

The Veranda honors a selfless woman whom I am proud to call my mother. God love her.

 

Bettie MacIntyre

• Language: English
• Publisher: MacIntyre
• Release date: Mar 26, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201956059

Bettie MacIntyre

I have lived most of my life in New England, but my heart will always remain in Vermont. I accomplished all that I wanted with in my career, but as my vocation, I love to write, and have been drafting short stories and poems from childhood. After taking early retirement, I put pen to paper and gave birth to the scrapes of stories and poems filed away, and The Hollow was born. It is a metaphorical story of a naïve country girl from the foothills of Vermont. I say metaphorical, but I will let you decide. I’ll give you a clue—Bettie I. MacIntyre.

Book preview

Acknowledgments

First, I want to thank my mother for giving me the gift of her beautiful poetry and writings. I am fortunate to have saved her precious stories, prose, and odes. I jotted down her tales throughout her life, journaled, and placed them in folders for safekeeping. I finally pulled the folder from my file cabinet and sorted through her many stories. Lois, my mother, always dreamed of having her poems published. I decided to become my mother’s dream-maker. In addition: Thank you to my dad for being my father and the man who loved my mother unconditionally. He alone made her complete. Together they were wonderful parents to four girls. Our mother glowed when she was around him. They were a happy couple, and a love story, of example. We girls were lucky to have had parents who loved each other and their girls. I read an excerpt from one of my mother's writings. It said, We were young, but we did well together to raise our four girls.

I want to thank a few members of my writing group from the Bristol, CT Senior Center, ‘Writing Group/My Story.’ Putting the short stories together has been an emotional effort. I couldn’t have appropriately transposed many of these stories without their assistance. The words from my mother's old scrapes of paper and poems, then writing them into the proper text, were more challenging than I initially thought. I especially want to thank Steve V., Bruce B., Rich S. An excellent trio became my go-to for advice, and I am grateful for their assistance.

My friend Deb Silon continues to urge and encourage my efforts. Her love of poetry has sparked her rhythmic writing soul—a great friend and reader who finds tidbits in a story that needs proper arrangement.

I thank my mentor extraordinaire, Stefan Vučak. He is a famous author of multiple novels, and also my proofreader and advisor. Due to Stefan’s counsel, today, I am a published author.

www.stefanvucak.com

Laura Shinn, my cover artist, is one person who can take a blank paper and turn it into a work of art. I thank her for her creations of beauty. I couldn’t have beautiful cover art without her.

www.laurashinn.yolasite.com

Introduction

When I was young, my memories vividly reflect evenings rocking on the Veranda with my mother and two of my three sisters. At that time, my youngest sister had not been born.

I lived with my grandparent in the Hollow in Bristol, VT, during World War II. At the onset of the War, my parents took my older sister Patty, a nineteen-month-old, and moved to Connecticut. My parents went to work in Bristol for the War effort. They returned after the war to Bristol, Vermont, and purchased a lovely Victorian-style home in the town proper. I continued to live with my gram, as she had become the only mother I knew at that time. I loved to visit my uptown family on weekends. Staying overnight was always an event, and the Veranda was memorable and remained a cherished memory.

After dinner dishes, our mother would hang her apron on the hook Dad had provided next to the sink. It became our queue, and we would scurry out to the green slatted porch rockers. Our mother had another child when they returned home to Vermont. We were now three girls—my eldest sister Patty, myself, and now sweet Sally Mae. Sally would sit on my lap and rock with me. Our mother somehow found time to draft a poem during her busy day. Our bedtime story was a verse or two that she had composed while doing chores.

We children sat in the green slatted rockers. Our mother would reach over with her arms and push both our rockers in unison. When we were in the same rhythm, she read us the daily poem she had lovingly written. Before she finished, Sally Mae would fall asleep, and when my mother closed the booklet, she carried her up the winding staircase and around the banister to the far end bedroom. I climbed under the covers holding Sally Mae while saying my nighttime prayers and Mother listened. Amen

As the years went on and we girls grew into young ladies, I’d make notes of my chats with our mother and the fond memories. I realized as I matured how much of my mother I had inherited. My memories were delightful and filled with happiness. Mother continued to write her short stories, and I found it became a rambling habit. My eldest sister began to write her memoir and sent it to me to proofread, as she felt her memory and dates were off. I assure you we had many a laugh over our writings and youthful stories. Mother and I enjoyed sharing stories over the years, and I jotted them down, as I never wanted to forget the details. I stuffed the treasured scraps of paper and documents into folders, and the treasured booklet she passed to me, and we shared poetry.

As time went on and she moved to Florida in her late forties. I’d visit, and we would sit for hours listening to her youthful reminiscing. After my dad passed away at fifty-nine, my mother’s heart was in sorrow. Writing was my mother’s way of expressing her feelings. That summer, I understood that as we shared intimate talks of her courting memories. Being brought up by parents who never expressed feelings or pain outwardly, my mother was a woman of like character. She was a quiet woman who never raised her voice and kept her feelings inside. Her pain was evident when my dad died, and her empty heart was lonely. She was only fifty-five then.

She was a petite woman who kept to herself and expressed her emotions through her writings and loved God, her country, and her four