Woman with local roots authors another book

Ellen Gray-Massey is an award winning editor, writer, teacher and historian. In 1995 she became a member of the Writers Hall of Fame of America. She edited and helped high school students create Bittersweet, the Ozark Quarterly for 10 years from 1973 to 1983. She has written several novels about the people and the hardships of the Civil War in Missouri and Kansas.

In all of her work she has always paid attention to the details and helped modern day readers settle back and experience the day to day lives of people just like themselves who lived in a long ago yesterday.

In this book "Footprints in the Ozarks," she has brought that attention to detail to the years of history she is most familiar with -- her own lifetime.

She explains her love for the Ozark area in her book. "I fell in love with the area and its people. I found what I was looking for and through my job, my marriage and years on the farm, teaching and writing I have entrenched myself in the Ozark area and culture."

The majority of book is about her life with her husband Lane Massey, and the family lifestyle they created together on an Ozark 40-acre farm dubbed Wildcat Hollow. Lane represented all she loves about the Ozarks and its people -- and she reveals all three with a tangible passion.

In the book she says, "I believe we shouldn't forget the past, especially the fine things there, like neighborliness, self-sufficiency, understanding nature, and many basic norms and practices that were being replaced in city living."

She tells her life story simply. The chapters' introductory comments reveal the backstory, set the time and place and prepare the reader to be launched into yet another adventure she and her family shared.

Whether gigging for "the big one" in a leaky boat on the river in the coldest part of winter, crawling through a cave, butchering hogs, making soap, planting, harvesting and learning to live with all the animals that are so essential to rural farms of the '40s and '50s; Massey's life was never boring.

But the book isn't just a series of short tales about Ozark life. Massey can't escape her love of history and her ability to teach; she goes into the detailed writing she is known for and brings "the old ways" back to a new audience.

Any historian or person interested in the uniqueness of the people of this region will read and enjoy this book over and over.

Today's reader can read and learn about how to survive in hard times -- and do it with a sense of purpose and determination illuminated with faith and a believe in the ultimate rewards of just doing the right thing the best you can.

There is a lot of solid information in this book. More so, there is solid Ozark understanding in this book by a woman who has lived her life with the Ozark saying, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."

The book shows a family's growth together; their involvement with community and their dependence upon each other.

Asked why she decided to write her memoirs at this point in her life, she responded, "I like to write about rural Missouri, specifically the Ozarks, and realized that I had many articles and stories that I have written over the years that could be put together to chronicle my life and at the same time portray the area and its people. I didn't think of it as a memoir. The publisher put that onto my title."

Massey's next work is still in progress.

"I'm writing a three-part series of contemporary mystery novels that take place at my home place, The Wayside, in Vernon County. I call it 'The Illustrated Barn' series," Massey said.

"In each novel, something painted on the red barn in the farm is a clue to solving the mystery. On the Gray farm near Deerfield we really do have a barn with writings on it. My first one is 'Skeleton in the Cistern.' The second is 'Tombstone in the Hayloft.'"

"Footprints in the Ozarks" is available online at Amazon.com for $17.99 paperback and through Kindle for $9.99. It can be purchased at Cavener's Office Supply on the square in Nevada ; or it can be ordered ($17.99 plus $3postage) from Ozark Writers, Inc.'s Web site: http://www.owinc.webs.com.