Anna and Darel

Jim McConkey

• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9798886938999

Who were these parents who had lived in a tent on an island in the Potomac River during the Depression while the father wrangled WPA guidebooks toward publication, and later wrote speeches for the Senator investigating cartels during World War II, wrote the book on foot-and-mouth disease, and crossed swords with Joe McCarthy's inquisition? Who was the mother who hadn't worked in thirty years yet fended off financial disaster after her husband's early death?

At his mother's death seventeen years later, the questions still lingered, leaving a void which Jim McConkey fills with a compelling narrative. From 'drinking wet and voting dry' during Prohibition to starving as a freelance writer in the Depression, the WPA Writer's Project, the early days of commercial air travel, and the international cartels that thwarted America's war mobilization and led to civilian rationing, McConkey's story captivates and informs.

And finally, that gorgeous farm in the foothills of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains is vividly preserved. The family's history, stored in a four-drawer filing cabinet stuffed with family papers, is brought to life in this loving parental biography.

Table of contents

• Anna and Darel
• About the Author
• Dedication
• Copyright Information ©
• Acknowledgment
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Chapter Twelve
• Chapter Thirteen
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Chapter Sixteen
• Chapter Seventeen
• Chapter Eighteen
• Chapter Nineteen
• Chapter Twenty
• Chapter Twenty-One
• Chapter Twenty-Two
• Chapter Twenty-Three
• Chapter Twenty-Four
• Chapter Twenty-Five
• Chapter Twenty-Six
• Chapter Twenty-Seven
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
• Chapter Twenty-Nine
• Chapter Thirty
• Chapter Thirty-One
• Chapter Thirty-Two
• Chapter Thirty-Three
• Chapter Thirty-Four
• Chapter Thirty-Five
• Chapter Thirty-Six
• Chapter Thirty-Seven
• Chapter Thirty-Eight
• Chapter Thirty-Nine
• Chapter Forty
• Chapter Forty-One
• Chapter Forty-Two
• Chapter Forty-Three
• Chapter Forty-Four
• Chapter Forty-Five
• Chapter Forty-Six
• Chapter Forty-Seven