In the Village of Lonsdale

About the Book

My mother always wore a bib apron to protect the cotton dresses she sewed for herself on an old machine that made a thumping sound when she moved the treadle with her foot. Except for the year of 1937 when I was twelve and my sister was fourteen and my father had lost his job and couldn't find another, she never worked outside the home. She didn't like to neighbor — that is, sit in other people's kitchens and gossip — but seemed somehow to know what was going on in the scattering of houses visible from our yard. With my sister and I her only audience in those pre-television days of homemade entertainment, she told us stories — anecdotes, sad tales and hilarious ones — of the early days of the Grayson family in America, their adopted country, and about the Graysons themselves.

My mother, father, grandmother and grandfather all came from England. My grandfather, born and raised on a farm in Yorkshire, sailed first, found a job and a place to live and sent for my grandmother who booked passage as soon as possible, traveling with five of their six children. A married daughter stayed behind for a few more years.

My mother's stories serve as the bedrock for this book, the details rounded out by several cousins, a gathering of documents and letters and my own precious memories. The time frame is 1903 to 1938. Included are tidbits from my life as a country child, the youngest in a family affected by the Great Depression whose harshness was kept at bay by humor and love.

About the Author

Born in her grandparent's bedroom on October 11, 1925, in the village of Lonsdale, in the town of Cumberland, Rhode island, Violet Grayson Lawton says of her writing, "My star rose early. At the age of fourteen , I wrote a poem and a rather dismal short story which I sent to Collier's Magazine. They rejected it, but I redeemed my pride by winning a school-wide essay contest at Cumberland high School. I was also made an at-large reporter for the school newsletter, The Chronicle.

In my senior year, I served as Literary Editor for our year book. One of my teachers wanted to switch to the college course, saying he was sure I could win a scholarship to a school of journalism, but that was too much of a reach for me. Instead, i took an office job after graduation in 1943 until my first marriage in 1949." Thirty-seven years later in January of 1986 at the age of sixty, Violet launched her freelance writing career.

Since that time, she has had eleven personal experience stories, five articles, four how-to pieces and four short stories published in magazines. She also wrote twelve columns for The Foxboro Reporter, a weekly newspaper in her former home of Foxboro, Massachusetts. In California, her present home, she's a member of "Two Cents", a pool of citizens who contribute opinions to The San Francisco Chronicle. She is also an active member of "Writers West of Alameda". This is her first book.