Texas Blonde

Author's Note

In doing research for my previous novels, I would occasionally come across a photograph of what appeared to be a sleeping baby. The captions to the pictures explained that the child, who was invariably dressed in a long christening gown, was dead. I found such captions incomprehensible according to my twentieth-century understanding. Then I finally happened across the explanation that traveling photographers were often asked to photograph infants prior to burial so the parents would have a memento of the deceased child. People who lived during the Victorian era were perhaps more sentimental and less squeamish about such things than we are today.

The details about Felicity's childbirth experiences are based on actual fact. The story, as told to me, was so fascinating that I have remembered it for almost two decades until at last I have the opportunity to put it into a book.