Letters from Cross Meadows:

Letters from Cross Meadows is an adult historical-fiction series set in Texas during the 1930s and 1940s—before, during, and after World War II. Although the characters are fictional and some of the towns and counties have been created for the series, many of the stories were inspired by the childhood memories my parents shared with me.

This series is priced a little more than my children’s series because two letters come a month with this series. My other series currently come once per month.

At the heart of the series is Will Taylor, a boy growing up on a hundred-acre farm outside the fictional town of Cross Meadows, Texas. Will lost his mother during the birth of his younger brother when he was only two years old. Because he has no memories of her, he carries a deep sadness and an aching desire to know more about the woman who gave him life.

Will’s best friend is Otis Washington, whose family lives and works on the Taylor farm alongside Will’s father, William, his Uncle Elmer, and his Aunt Flo. Will and his family recognize no difference in a person’s worth because of skin color. Unfortunately, they live in a time and place where prejudice, bigotry, segregation, and racial violence are deeply rooted in everyday life.

A terrible sign posted outside Cross Meadows declares that Black people are not allowed to be within the town limits after sundown. Though Cross Meadows is fictional, signs bearing this hateful message actually existed in at least two Texas towns during that era.

Even as a boy, Will cannot understand how anyone—especially someone who calls himself a Christian—could believe that another human being should be mistreated simply because God created that person with Black skin. His struggle becomes even more painful when he realizes that the pastor of his own Baptist church shares the town’s prejudices. The preacher is also a member of a secretive group known as “the Committee,” which is, in truth, the local Ku Klux Klan.

Will’s greatest ambition is to become mayor of Cross Meadows one day. When he does, he intends to order those terrible signs removed and open the town to people of every race. His dream places him on a difficult and sometimes dangerous path as he questions the beliefs of his community and searches for the true meaning of justice, courage, and Christian love.

Some portions of this series may be difficult to read. The stories portray the racial prejudice of the South during that period honestly and directly. The racial slur commonly known as the “N-word” will occasionally appear in dialogue for historical accuracy. Its inclusion is never intended to approve of, excuse, or glorify such language. Rather, it reveals the cruelty of the attitudes Will and Otis must confront.

Biblical truth and Christian values will be woven throughout these stories, just as they are in my other writings. However, the series will also examine the painful difference between genuinely following Christ and merely claiming His name while harboring hatred toward others.

I believe we learn from history every day. Whether its lessons are good or bad, they help us understand where we have been, how far we have come, and how carefully we must guard against repeating the sins of the past. History should never be erased or forgotten. Through Will and Otis’s friendship, I hope readers will be reminded that courage sometimes begins with a single person who is willing to recognize injustice, question what others accept, and stand for what is right.

As with all of my other letter stories, this will be published as a book after the subscription ends.

—Sheila-Ann Bender

About This Series:

Sample Story:

Chapter One: The Town Beyond Our Farm

My name is Will Taylor. I was raised on a hundred-acre farm a couple of miles outside Cross Meadows, Texas, the county seat of Gifford County. Cross Meadows wasn’t much to look at compared to the big cities, but to folks like me, it was the center of the world.

The courthouse stood proudly in the middle of the town square like a king watching over his kingdom. Around it sat everything a person could need—a feed store, grocery, butcher shop, bank, funeral home, post office, and five-and-dime. My favorite place was the drugstore. Its soda fountain served the finest burgers and milkshakes in Texas—or at least every kid who ever tasted one thought so.

A few blocks from the square were the schools. Once the final bell rang, the grammar school playground belonged to every child in town. Behind it stood the red-brick high school with its own football and baseball fields, both a great source of pride for our little farming community.

Everybody knew everybody in Cross Meadows. If you got sick, you went to Doc Henderson. If Doc wasn’t available, folks joked that Vet Washburn could stitch up a person almost as well as he could a horse. If you needed a lawyer, you went to Weatherford and Weatherford, a father and son law team.  If you needed somewhere to stay, Ma Walton’s boarding house was always open.

It was the kind of town where people knew your grandparents, remembered your birthday, and weren’t afraid to tell your parents if they caught you misbehaving.

But not everything about Cross Meadows was worth being proud of.

Gifford County was a dry county. Folks who wanted whiskey either drove elsewhere to buy it or found a bootlegger willing to risk the sheriff’s wrath. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. Cross Meadows carried an ugliness that troubled me even when I was a boy.

Black families were not allowed to live inside the town limits.

I never understood it.

My best friend, Otis Washington, lived on our farm with his family. His father, Isaiah, worked alongside my dad and Uncle Elmer. The Washingtons were good people—honest, hardworking, and kind. Yet because of an old law written long before I was born, they weren’t welcome to live in town like everyone else.

Most Saturdays, the Washingtons didn’t even bother shopping in Cross Meadows. Instead, they traveled to Clayville in the next county, where they could shop, worship, and spend their money without being reminded that they weren’t wanted.

I couldn’t blame them.

I was born in 1929, the year the Great Depression began. By the time I was old enough to understand what it meant, people were still talking about it. Men who had once owned businesses were grateful to find any job at all. Families patched old clothes instead of buying new ones, and nobody wasted anything.

My family managed better than most. Because we lived on a farm and grew much of our own food, we always had something on the table. Looking back, I remember my childhood as a happy one.

But happiness and tragedy often share the same roof.

Long before I was born, my mama’s older brother, Dan Ferguson, was killed during the First World War. His story was told around our dinner table so many times that I felt as though I had known Uncle Dan myself.

After joining the Army, Uncle Dan became fast friends with another young soldier named William Paul Taylor—the man who would eventually become my father. Before the two of them shipped out for France, they were granted a week’s leave and decided to visit each other’s families.

They came to Texas first.

According to family legend, Uncle Dan spent the entire visit trying to play matchmaker between Mama and Daddy. If that was his plan, it worked. They fell for each other almost immediately.

After a few days, the two soldiers traveled to Kansas to visit Dad’s family. Before leaving Texas, Daddy wrote Mama his first letter. That letter began a correspondence that would change both their lives.

Mama faithfully wrote to both young soldiers after they reached France. Dad eventually wrote back.

Uncle Dan never did.

Only days after arriving overseas, his unit was drawn into a terrible battle. A German machine-gun position caught his company in a deadly crossfire, and Uncle Dan was among those killed.

Dad survived only because he was lying desperately ill with the Spanish Flu in an Army hospital. For the rest of his life, he carried the burden of surviving when so many others—including his best friend—had not.

After the war ended, a telegram arrived in Cross Meadows telling my grandparents that they had lost their only son.

Mama feared she had lost the man she loved as well. She had written letter after letter to Daddy, but none had been answered. Then, weeks later, a letter finally arrived from an Army hospital.

Daddy was alive.

Mama kept that letter for the rest of her life.

Cross Meadows was a place of friendship, hardship, loyalty, prejudice, sorrow, and hope. Like most hometowns—and most families—it held things worth cherishing and things that needed to change.