Allison’s research into the past ownership of her green house revealed to the Pine Street crew that it had been owned by Marilyn’s family. It was still a mystery, however, how it had passed out of their care, and why Marilyn had purchased the house they all knew as hers, up the street. 

These stories were lost in time, Allison considered. But perhaps I can find them. 

So, on top of her passion for restoring the old house, she added a new desire to uncover the history of the people associated with it. 

Meanwhile, her mother had fallen ill again. Allison put Leo in charge of the house, packed a bag, and drove to her parent’s house for another round of caregiving. She found her father frail but stubborn, and her mother passive in her suffering.

In other words, the usual. 

Between driving her mother to appointments and tracking her father’s medicines, Allison curled up on their big sofa with her laptop and portable hot spot. She spent hours tracking down birth and death and marriage certificates, census reports, and local newspaper stories. 

She found a few items from the widow’s times, news tidbits about unrest in the mines north of town, about the comings and goings of fashionable people, and the arrival of a new minister, with his wife and daughter. Such things were important news in the small towns of the previous century. 

Allison discovered the widow’s past, her husband’s story: riches made from logging, death coming the same way, in a horrible landslide caused by unusual rains on a deforested slope. She found the name of their one surviving son, and the record of his marriage to the minister’s daughter. 

She also found something that piqued her curiosity even further: A notice in the local paper of a meeting, a group of men concerned about the “racial purity” of the town. The name of their organization was frighteningly familiar. Allison knew, vaguely, of the region’s history in this arena, and felt sickened but not surprised. Hidden away, though, was another name that elated her. 

Marilyn’s grandmother, the minister’s daughter, organizing a counter-meeting, a gathering to protest the racist message of the time, based on the teachings of her father’s church.

Ursula’s adventures did not end with her marriage. She stood up against violence and bullies,  more than once.