March 16, 2024 • 26 mins
DEBRA YATES hails from Ohio but now resides in St. Pete Beach, Florida. Although she began her writing later in life, she did so with great passion. Being of Cherokee descent and having had stories passed down from generation to generation, Debra found herself drawn to family history, to the point of enlisting a genealogist to verify her conclusions. Traveling to relevant destinations along the East Coast and in the Midwest, she brought her findings back to the peace, calm, and tranquility that she feels God has provided to her in the Sunshine State. With the release of Woman of Many Names, she now puts her sights on a followup to document the next stage of her seventh-greatgrandmother's historic life
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(00:04):
Well, hello everyone, and welcometo I think I'm going to do with
let me see. You know,we have four podcasts, right, so
I always have to pick the podcastthat I'm actually going to put this on
and then introduce it. It's alwaysoh so fun because the moment that happens,
you're like, what, okay,so let me figure it out.
(00:26):
So there's one and welcome to Ithink I'm going to do it. Let
me see three. Four I'm goingwith. I'm going with number four.
Yes, the fourth one is goingto be the writers class, unless unless
you're a movie person and I justdon't know it right movie producer director,
(00:51):
No, okay, writer's class.It is hello, ever you want to
welcome to the writers class. Thatwas my long running joke. And you
see how long that bit took.It's because I'm sleepy, so my brain
is like, so I'm gonna bedone with the bit. Snow, we
wrote books normally. When I saythere's normally like a jade on this side
(01:11):
or this side or some side oneither side of me, there's normally one
jade. I don't know how youdo that. I guess you split dada
in half and put her on bothsides. There you go, but she's
not here to that. But wewrote books, and the books are in
the thought Divorces bad and I thoughtbeing ridables eazy. If only I are
mere memoir on verse, Foreign Coffee, Widdows Web, and Widows Death.
Then if you're following along and youcan count my fingertips, right, that's
six books. So those are sixaudiobooks wherever your audiobooks are sold. Oh,
(01:36):
I should mention that our books,since Jada isn't here and that's normally
her thing, are literary life guideswith pop poetry. Now if you want
to get the rest of the nowfifteen books, Lord have mercy. I
need to stop writing, or maybeI need to write more. You can
check out www dot and I thoughtladies dot com. So since I'm out
(01:59):
of energy, I'm not doing itagain, like I'm a car salesman that
I'm done with that. So you'renot here to hear about me. You're
here to hear about our wonderful guests. Wonderful guests. Would you like to
introduce yourself, hight, I'm deWri Eights. I'm author of the book
Woman of Many Names and Three Thingsthat People Don't know about me in general,
are I'm pretty consistent. I haveto wake up very slowly, so
(02:29):
it takes me about an hour towake up every morning, maybe longer if
it was a real long night.And the other thing is that I'm a
Cherokee Indian. Nice people don't know. Yeah, that's okay. I'm not
gonna because if I talk about thatnow, then we would like not talk
(02:51):
about the book. So let mego ahead and be like, you're consistent.
I feel like if you're consistent,you should do a podcast. I
probably should. I've how many podcastshave you done? How many interviews?
Oh Mercy interviews, TV radio andpodcasts? I'd say I'm probably working on
(03:16):
about fifty or sixty. Not beenaround a little bit. Yes, Fortunately
I have a wonderful publicist whose nameis Bruce Worsniak, and he still wrestles
up and interview or two for mepretty much every month. So it's it's
been fun. I really enjoy talkingabout my book and mostly talking about Nancy
(03:42):
Ward, who the book has writtenabout. And it's been a wonderful journey
that I never expected that I wouldtake in this lifetime. Well why didn't
you? Okay, let's go to. Let's start at the beginning. What
made you write the book? Andwho is it a out? It's about
my seventh great grandmother. She wasAlaska gay you, which means beloved woman
(04:05):
of the Cherokee nation before the removal. So it was you know, pre
Revolutionary war that time, that typeof stuff. She she schemed with Thomas
Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and Daniel Booneand a few other notorious fellows along the
(04:27):
way. I love that with allthose fellows there's the name of your seventh
grandmother, of your grandmother. Thatis just amazing. It's like, hey,
the big dogs and then there's me, y'all. There was her.
She was indeed, ay forced tobe reckoned with a force of nature and
her own She was very intuitive,had the gift of sight recognition, just
(04:57):
you know, an amazing human beingthat was raised and trained from very young
to be a leader amongst the Cherokeenation. Wow. So how did you
find out about your grandmother? Whatkind of history did you research? Did
you have to do? Well?Basically, what I started out this I
wasn't supposed to be a book.I was just writing down the information that
(05:21):
my grandfather and his brothers and sisterdid had imparted on me over the years,
and at first it was very secretiveabout our ancestry. And you know,
my grandfather left the reservation in theearly twenties. They were, you
know, with the mass exodus fromthere because there was just so much starvation
(05:45):
and lack of work. So heleft and moved to Florida. When the
family moved from Florida, Ohio,it was a concerted decision not to tell
people that they were Native American Indiansbecause you know, if you imagine back
in the forties and the thirties,it was rough for us, you know
(06:10):
what I'm talking about, and itwas better off. Folks just didn't know
my grandpa was a half breed,and it was pretty easy for him to
make out like he was like Italianor something, you know. You know,
they just didn't really discuss an ancestory. So when I was about twelve,
(06:32):
I'd been having repetitive dreams about aNative American woman standing on a hill
looking down into the valley and she'dbreach her hand up and go like this,
And you know, after several timesof the same dream, I asked
my mother if she knew anything aboutthis, and she says, no,
(06:55):
I don't know. So after acouple more times, I had the same
exact dream over and over and overand over again, and I finally looked
on her one day. I said, Mom, I said, I keep
having that same dream, And whenshe kind of cussed at me a little
bit, and she said, mmhmm, all right, you're a Cherokee
(07:16):
Indian, but don't you tell asoul. And I went, oh,
well, that's exactly what I did. I went to school the next day
I told anybody that will listen,I'm American, Cherokee, American Indian,
and no I'm not a tie.And uh, you know, there we
go. So as time, youknow, kind of went on, and
(07:39):
these stories were told me repetitively,of course, because that is the American
Native American way, is to tellthese stories repetitively to kind of sink it
into our brain, because we didn'thave a whole lot of trust, you
know, of the government and lawenforcement and stuff like that. Because as
(08:00):
far as I can tell, youknow, being locked up on a reservation,
so to speak, it is nofun and cause a lot of emotional
turmoil within the people themselves, causeda lot of depression that I believe is
(08:20):
part of our structural issues at thisjuncture, why alcoholism and drug abuse are
so high amongst the people. Andyou know, I just wanted to write
those things down about grandmother Nancy Wardbecause I was afraid the stories were going
to die with me, because Ireally didn't realize she was real important.
(08:43):
You know, I just knew shewas very important, and my grandfather just
thought that she was amazing. Andhe would say, oh, you look
like my mother, and my motherlooked like Nannie, and you know,
you know, that's what they alwaystold her, she looked like Nanny.
And so because we called her,he called her Nanny or nan ye he.
(09:07):
He seldom referred to her as NancyWard. And you know, there's
a lot of controversy now about ohshe was never had the name nan Ye.
Well, I believe she did.I you know, there's a lot
of us that believe she did.She was just, you know, like
I said, somebody that doesn't comealong very often, like like a Benjamin
(09:31):
Franklin and a Thomas Jefferson and DanielBoone. She loved Daniel Boone so much,
and you know, it just isyou know, it was a different
time in a different era that youknow, you know, everything had to
happen the way it did to createwhat we've got going for us here.
(09:52):
Now we're a wonderful melting pot.That's that's my belief. So you are
actually a living part of history.That's gotta be amazing. How did it
feel for you? Did you feellike you had to like get up and
do something and get out here?I can't even tell you. Since this,
for lack of a better word,this journey began, I have found
(10:16):
out I'm a descendant of a Mayflowerperson, Oshius Hopkins, who was born
in the Bay get waiting to getoff the ship and survived all those next
few years. You know, ofall the people that went on the Mayflower,
only fifty two survived the first year. And I came from stock like
(10:39):
that, and my dad's spokes hecame. They came over in the late
sixteen hundreds and open missionaries throughout theUnited States. They were called the Brainerd
missions. And he was a Brainerd. And you know that I had a
grandma that was like hung at theSalem Witch trials. You know, where
(11:01):
do you get? I mean justand she really wasn't a witch, and
she was declared innocent. Sarah waseventually. But you know, it's this,
there's quite a marvelous thing. Youhave quite a lot of history to
choose from. How did you pickout what you were going to put in
the book and what I didn't knowabout that other stuff? I didn't know.
(11:24):
I didn't know any of that otherstuff. I knew I was.
I knew my relations were Brainard's,but I didn't really understand who the Brainards
were and to know. After inthe middle of writing my story, I
finally figured out that my dad's peoplewere helping my mother's people in Tennessee,
(11:48):
m in the eighteen hundreds. So, you know, I don't know,
really, I guess I don't know. I don't know. I can weave
a book together about all this stuff, about all my ancestors. It's just
crazy. I would call it thequilt of me, the book and me,
(12:11):
the quilt of me, the quiltof me. And my grandmother was
a quilt maker. There you go. Yeah, that's a good idea.
Yeah, it's it's amazing that wayweave it together. You can make it
into all the stories will call patches, and then you have a different design
at the beginning of every chapter,and at the end you have the quilt
(12:31):
at the end, and you justwrite yourself a cute little poem about how
your pieces of different parts of history, and that's the end of the work.
That's a wonderful idea til I'll haveto have to put some thought into
that. Wow. Now, nowwe've talked about your second book, we
know what's coming up the quilt ofme. Let's talk about the book you've
(12:54):
actually written. So how did youchoose what was important to put in there?
And then because I know you dida lot of research, and once
you do research, you want toput every line of your research in,
So how did you pick out whatyou wanted to put in? And then
he organized it in order to tella story. What I did was,
of course I wrote the original writingslike I was just going to give them
(13:16):
to the kids. So let's prayabout maybe ten fifteen pages of you know,
things that I knew already about NonnieNancy, and when my girlfriend transcribed
all of it and typed it upfor me real pretty so I could,
you know, give it to thecall my nieces and nephews and grandnieces.
(13:39):
She just got really emotional and toldme. You know, she says,
you know, you know, I'vealways said you got a book in you,
Deborah, and I think you foundyour book. And I said,
say what She said, Yeah,this is a story that needs to be
told. She says, it's youknow, I know they're other things out
(14:01):
there about Nancy, but you're lettingout some family tales here that you know,
really have, she says, fromresearch I've done, an't aren't out
there. And I said, well, maybe they weren't supposed to be out
there. She says, no,it needs to be a book and you
need to just sit down and writeit. So the next probably a couple
(14:22):
of years, I was in themiddle of a pretty tumultuous divorce, and
I was in Florida and didn't havea whole lot to do but go from
one place in the next and thenext and the next. So I just
started writing, and you know,I would write it, then i'd read
what I wrote, and i'd studysome more, then i'd add more,
and that's how I just kind ofget building on it. And then I
(14:46):
had somebody that knew how to typeand use the computer because I'm like illiterate
on a computer. She says,well, i'll help you, you know,
And then it was get in here, get in here, I got
a question. I got a question. Well, so then we start adding.
It was correct. But it tookabout three years. That's crazy.
(15:07):
And I finally felt I had astory. My mother had fallen ill and
scared everything out of us, andyou know, we just weren't sure how
much time she would have left.But she's still live and kicking and donner
really good, I might say.And so I kind of just said,
(15:30):
okay, I'm going to stop here, because most of what everybody knows about
Nancy is it's already written. Iwrote from a young like the birth of
Nancy until she was right around nineteen, maybe twenty years old, somewhere in
that range. And I say,you know, the rest of it's really
(15:52):
very well documented. So now I'vegot all these family members going, oh,
you need nobody tells it like youdo, Deborah. It's like,
oh, okay, well I stillhaven't finished it. I've got like three
or now four in there started,and you know, it's not as easy
(16:15):
as you might think. And I'malmost seventy and it's you know, it's
not easy at this age to becomesomething that you really weren't. I call
myself an accidental author, and Itruly believe that. You know, there
was nothing in me that was thedriving force that said, yo, you
(16:38):
know, you need to write abook some days. So that was my
girlfriend's deal, but she never didit, dog on it. So she's
been a great friend to me aswell as helped me navigate that first book
pretty good. There's nothing like gettingyour first bark to write a book and
then you're just like got to doit. And then when the first one
(17:00):
is done, you do slow downa bit. But my first one was
done when I was like twelve,so I didn't slow down at all.
So yeah, well I had abad English teacher, and you know,
(17:25):
because I always did have a flairfor being kind of creative, and you
know, she really gave me whatfor one day about how I wrote something,
and I think it kind of stoppedme and almost like was paralyzing.
It was you know, you don'tshouldn't do that to your children. And
(17:45):
I was a bright child. Igot good grades, and you know she
kind of stifled me, really,I believe, and thinking that what I
had to say. It wasn't important. Yeah, I definitely understand. That
didn't happen to me. To collegeand I was working on my third degree,
(18:08):
and I was almost done my creativewriting degree, and I think I
was like, it was my lastclass and I just gave up, and
I have an English degree instead ofa creative writing degree. No, no,
I have that, and I understandthat that importance, like the importance
(18:30):
to foster creativity. I have toadmit, like I am a narcissist,
so I'm gonna talk about me.I have to admit, like during the
entire time that I was in elementaryschool, it did not and and and
then in middle school it did notmatter to me because I got published when
I was ten, So it didn'tmatter to me that you didn't like it
because I was the best. Youjust didn't know yet when you caught up,
(18:52):
you'd figure it out. And ittook my third degree, my last
degree coming out of college for sowant to be like you're not the best
for me to be like, wait, you said what because everybody else I
was like, you're not the best? Oh boy, please, oh girl,
please? Whatever, Yeah, youjust need to read it again.
(19:12):
You'll find it. I get y'all, I get y'all beautiful. I'm sad
about this, teacher, because thereare great works that have been missed now
from missus de wor eight quite possibly. Yeah, it's all locked up in
here. If we could just getit out and here exactly. You have
(19:34):
to write what you know about,So write with your heart. I do
not write what I know. No, I don't, so what you know
about not maybe everything you know becauseI didn't write everything I know about Nancy
Word in that book. They're justI didn't want to get sued and I
didn't want a lot of controversy becauseit could happen. Tell me where we
(19:59):
can find I know more information aboutthis book. Yes, you can sign
up to the page of Woman ofMany Names on Facebook and go over some
of the extensive interviews I've done overthe years, and you can go to
ww dot Woman of Many Names andthat'll take you straight to the publisher if
you would like to buy a copyperhaps, and it's of course available in
(20:22):
Books a Million, Barnes and NobleAmazon. I did have a five star
rating, but I think I wentdown before and half because I got one
bad review. Because what happened wassomehow or another in the printing process,
they use the unedited copy. Ididn't send it to. Somebody that worked
(20:45):
for the publishing companies sent it tothem, and it had quite a few
spelling errors in it because I amnot the best speller in the world.
Sign anyway, there you go.I mean, our job is to create,
our job is not to make itperfect. But at a four,
(21:07):
yeah, I mean, so I'mmiss denying spirit. It's the same word
too. I mean, you gota spurt in your spirit. But anyway,
and I don't know how that happened. I don't know how that happened,
but it did. It did.So. But you know, a
(21:30):
bad review because someone actually like hatedthe book, Like yeah, like that
you get first bad review because someonehated the book? You like, excuse
you? Yeah, you know,are you eating kind of criticism? So
I'm glad that I have good goodall right, So you you all know
(21:55):
where you can find it? Canyou tell us one more time where you
can find out more information about thisbook? Yes, Facebook, like I
said, womenomani names dot com.You can probably find some reviews online.
There's a lot of pictures I've donesome really interesting dedication work in Tennessee where
(22:17):
where my grandmother is actually buried,my seventh great grandmother, and there's a
very old cemetery in Boat Ramp inBenton, Tennessee, beautiful spot. I
just worked with the dar the Daughtersof the American Revolution, and we actually
were able to procure a beautiful bronzeplaque for her for the two hundred and
(22:42):
fifty year anniversary of the Revolutionary War, you know, which is I guess
coming up or something like that,And yeah, two fifty and I think
it's in a just you know,another year and a half maybe, so
they're in the process of getting thesemarkers set in anticipation of those celebrations.
(23:06):
So that was fun. I've gottento work with the Parks Department of Tennessee,
who actually maintains the grounds where sheis buried. So it's been quite
an adventure. And I've got toknow doctor Bones, whose name is author
Bohannan, and he set up allthe like the first graveyards across America and
(23:30):
all around the world where they stickbodies and figure out how long they've been
there by the bugs that are inthem. He worked on this shuttle he
you know, helped, you know, with the collecting of the people on
the shuttle. He worked at nineto eleven and unfortunately did pick up some
long issues and stuff from working atground zero all those years. And he's
(23:56):
you know, teaching us how tofind bodies. It's been so cool.
He says, we're special. Hesaid, the Nancy Worlds are war descendants,
are that we're different and that wehave an intuitiveness that is uncanny,
just like she did. And soit's it's just been an amazing journey,
(24:21):
like I said, just crazy.Thank you so much Stubber for coming on
today and for talking about Nancy Ward. I have I have fallen in love
with this with your grandmother man somuch right there in the painting. Yeah,
and then the book is on theother side, it is, Yes,
(24:41):
it is. That's her. Soyou guys know exactly what it looks
like. Nobody's the word corner here. I well, I've got a couple
of corners for But yeah, she'skind of taken over my life, so
to speak. But you know,it's been a blessing truly, and thank
you so happens your show today.We're going to go ahead and wrap it
(25:07):
up for me over here. I'mone of the ant I Thought Ladies.
You can find all of our booksand anything about us at www dot and
I thought ladies dot com. Ifyou happen to be in London and you're
going to the London Book Fair inabout nine days or no it's ten days,
eleven days, eleven days and elevendays, yep, stop by and
come see us because we'll be there. Oh but if you're not at you
(25:33):
know, traveling over to London andbeing at the book fair, you'll see
us some other time whenever. Butremember when you go to our page,
go down to the middle of thepage and you can see the charities that
we probably support. We asked thatyou support them too. It does not
have to be with finances. Itcould be with time volunteering. It could
be with just giving them some knowledgeand access to the knowledge that you have
(25:55):
we asked. We thank you inadvance for that. And remember that wisdom
is all around you if you're opento finding and accepting it. So peace
and love you, guys, fromthe Wellnona and the Missing Jade. Oh yeah,
Well, hello everyone, and welcometo I think I'm going to do with
let me see. You know,we have four podcasts, right, so
I always have to pick the podcastthat I'm actually going to put this on
and then introduce it. It's alwaysoh so fun because the moment that happens,
you're like, what, okay,so let me figure it out.
(00:26):
So there's one and welcome to Ithink I'm going to do it. Let
me see three. Four I'm goingwith. I'm going with number four.
Yes, the fourth one is goingto be the writers class, unless unless
you're a movie person and I justdon't know it right movie producer director,
(00:51):
No, okay, writer's class.It is hello, ever you want to
welcome to the writers class. Thatwas my long running joke. And you
see how long that bit took.It's because I'm sleepy, so my brain
is like, so I'm gonna bedone with the bit. Snow, we
wrote books normally. When I saythere's normally like a jade on this side
(01:11):
or this side or some side oneither side of me, there's normally one
jade. I don't know how youdo that. I guess you split dada
in half and put her on bothsides. There you go, but she's
not here to that. But wewrote books, and the books are in
the thought Divorces bad and I thoughtbeing ridables eazy. If only I are
mere memoir on verse, Foreign Coffee, Widdows Web, and Widows Death.
Then if you're following along and youcan count my fingertips, right, that's
six books. So those are sixaudiobooks wherever your audiobooks are sold. Oh,
(01:36):
I should mention that our books,since Jada isn't here and that's normally
her thing, are literary life guideswith pop poetry. Now if you want
to get the rest of the nowfifteen books, Lord have mercy. I
need to stop writing, or maybeI need to write more. You can
check out www dot and I thoughtladies dot com. So since I'm out
(01:59):
of energy, I'm not doing itagain, like I'm a car salesman that
I'm done with that. So you'renot here to hear about me. You're
here to hear about our wonderful guests. Wonderful guests. Would you like to
introduce yourself, hight, I'm deWri Eights. I'm author of the book
Woman of Many Names and Three Thingsthat People Don't know about me in general,
are I'm pretty consistent. I haveto wake up very slowly, so
(02:29):
it takes me about an hour towake up every morning, maybe longer if
it was a real long night.And the other thing is that I'm a
Cherokee Indian. Nice people don't know. Yeah, that's okay. I'm not
gonna because if I talk about thatnow, then we would like not talk
(02:51):
about the book. So let mego ahead and be like, you're consistent.
I feel like if you're consistent,you should do a podcast. I
probably should. I've how many podcastshave you done? How many interviews?
Oh Mercy interviews, TV radio andpodcasts? I'd say I'm probably working on
(03:16):
about fifty or sixty. Not beenaround a little bit. Yes, Fortunately
I have a wonderful publicist whose nameis Bruce Worsniak, and he still wrestles
up and interview or two for mepretty much every month. So it's it's
been fun. I really enjoy talkingabout my book and mostly talking about Nancy
(03:42):
Ward, who the book has writtenabout. And it's been a wonderful journey
that I never expected that I wouldtake in this lifetime. Well why didn't
you? Okay, let's go to. Let's start at the beginning. What
made you write the book? Andwho is it a out? It's about
my seventh great grandmother. She wasAlaska gay you, which means beloved woman
(04:05):
of the Cherokee nation before the removal. So it was you know, pre
Revolutionary war that time, that typeof stuff. She she schemed with Thomas
Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and Daniel Booneand a few other notorious fellows along the
(04:27):
way. I love that with allthose fellows there's the name of your seventh
grandmother, of your grandmother. Thatis just amazing. It's like, hey,
the big dogs and then there's me, y'all. There was her.
She was indeed, ay forced tobe reckoned with a force of nature and
her own She was very intuitive,had the gift of sight recognition, just
(04:57):
you know, an amazing human beingthat was raised and trained from very young
to be a leader amongst the Cherokeenation. Wow. So how did you
find out about your grandmother? Whatkind of history did you research? Did
you have to do? Well?Basically, what I started out this I
wasn't supposed to be a book.I was just writing down the information that
(05:21):
my grandfather and his brothers and sisterdid had imparted on me over the years,
and at first it was very secretiveabout our ancestry. And you know,
my grandfather left the reservation in theearly twenties. They were, you
know, with the mass exodus fromthere because there was just so much starvation
(05:45):
and lack of work. So heleft and moved to Florida. When the
family moved from Florida, Ohio,it was a concerted decision not to tell
people that they were Native American Indiansbecause you know, if you imagine back
in the forties and the thirties,it was rough for us, you know
(06:10):
what I'm talking about, and itwas better off. Folks just didn't know
my grandpa was a half breed,and it was pretty easy for him to
make out like he was like Italianor something, you know. You know,
they just didn't really discuss an ancestory. So when I was about twelve,
(06:32):
I'd been having repetitive dreams about aNative American woman standing on a hill
looking down into the valley and she'dbreach her hand up and go like this,
And you know, after several timesof the same dream, I asked
my mother if she knew anything aboutthis, and she says, no,
(06:55):
I don't know. So after acouple more times, I had the same
exact dream over and over and overand over again, and I finally looked
on her one day. I said, Mom, I said, I keep
having that same dream, And whenshe kind of cussed at me a little
bit, and she said, mmhmm, all right, you're a Cherokee
(07:16):
Indian, but don't you tell asoul. And I went, oh,
well, that's exactly what I did. I went to school the next day
I told anybody that will listen,I'm American, Cherokee, American Indian,
and no I'm not a tie.And uh, you know, there we
go. So as time, youknow, kind of went on, and
(07:39):
these stories were told me repetitively,of course, because that is the American
Native American way, is to tellthese stories repetitively to kind of sink it
into our brain, because we didn'thave a whole lot of trust, you
know, of the government and lawenforcement and stuff like that. Because as
(08:00):
far as I can tell, youknow, being locked up on a reservation,
so to speak, it is nofun and cause a lot of emotional
turmoil within the people themselves, causeda lot of depression that I believe is
(08:20):
part of our structural issues at thisjuncture, why alcoholism and drug abuse are
so high amongst the people. Andyou know, I just wanted to write
those things down about grandmother Nancy Wardbecause I was afraid the stories were going
to die with me, because Ireally didn't realize she was real important.
(08:43):
You know, I just knew shewas very important, and my grandfather just
thought that she was amazing. Andhe would say, oh, you look
like my mother, and my motherlooked like Nannie, and you know,
you know, that's what they alwaystold her, she looked like Nanny.
And so because we called her,he called her Nanny or nan ye he.
(09:07):
He seldom referred to her as NancyWard. And you know, there's
a lot of controversy now about ohshe was never had the name nan Ye.
Well, I believe she did.I you know, there's a lot
of us that believe she did.She was just, you know, like
I said, somebody that doesn't comealong very often, like like a Benjamin
(09:31):
Franklin and a Thomas Jefferson and DanielBoone. She loved Daniel Boone so much,
and you know, it just isyou know, it was a different
time in a different era that youknow, you know, everything had to
happen the way it did to createwhat we've got going for us here.
(09:52):
Now we're a wonderful melting pot.That's that's my belief. So you are
actually a living part of history.That's gotta be amazing. How did it
feel for you? Did you feellike you had to like get up and
do something and get out here?I can't even tell you. Since this,
for lack of a better word,this journey began, I have found
(10:16):
out I'm a descendant of a Mayflowerperson, Oshius Hopkins, who was born
in the Bay get waiting to getoff the ship and survived all those next
few years. You know, ofall the people that went on the Mayflower,
only fifty two survived the first year. And I came from stock like
(10:39):
that, and my dad's spokes hecame. They came over in the late
sixteen hundreds and open missionaries throughout theUnited States. They were called the Brainerd
missions. And he was a Brainerd. And you know that I had a
grandma that was like hung at theSalem Witch trials. You know, where
(11:01):
do you get? I mean justand she really wasn't a witch, and
she was declared innocent. Sarah waseventually. But you know, it's this,
there's quite a marvelous thing. Youhave quite a lot of history to
choose from. How did you pickout what you were going to put in
the book and what I didn't knowabout that other stuff? I didn't know.
(11:24):
I didn't know any of that otherstuff. I knew I was.
I knew my relations were Brainard's,but I didn't really understand who the Brainards
were and to know. After inthe middle of writing my story, I
finally figured out that my dad's peoplewere helping my mother's people in Tennessee,
(11:48):
m in the eighteen hundreds. So, you know, I don't know,
really, I guess I don't know. I don't know. I can weave
a book together about all this stuff, about all my ancestors. It's just
crazy. I would call it thequilt of me, the book and me,
(12:11):
the quilt of me, the quiltof me. And my grandmother was
a quilt maker. There you go. Yeah, that's a good idea.
Yeah, it's it's amazing that wayweave it together. You can make it
into all the stories will call patches, and then you have a different design
at the beginning of every chapter,and at the end you have the quilt
(12:31):
at the end, and you justwrite yourself a cute little poem about how
your pieces of different parts of history, and that's the end of the work.
That's a wonderful idea til I'll haveto have to put some thought into
that. Wow. Now, nowwe've talked about your second book, we
know what's coming up the quilt ofme. Let's talk about the book you've
(12:54):
actually written. So how did youchoose what was important to put in there?
And then because I know you dida lot of research, and once
you do research, you want toput every line of your research in,
So how did you pick out whatyou wanted to put in? And then
he organized it in order to tella story. What I did was,
of course I wrote the original writingslike I was just going to give them
(13:16):
to the kids. So let's prayabout maybe ten fifteen pages of you know,
things that I knew already about NonnieNancy, and when my girlfriend transcribed
all of it and typed it upfor me real pretty so I could,
you know, give it to thecall my nieces and nephews and grandnieces.
(13:39):
She just got really emotional and toldme. You know, she says,
you know, you know, I'vealways said you got a book in you,
Deborah, and I think you foundyour book. And I said,
say what She said, Yeah,this is a story that needs to be
told. She says, it's youknow, I know they're other things out
(14:01):
there about Nancy, but you're lettingout some family tales here that you know,
really have, she says, fromresearch I've done, an't aren't out
there. And I said, well, maybe they weren't supposed to be out
there. She says, no,it needs to be a book and you
need to just sit down and writeit. So the next probably a couple
(14:22):
of years, I was in themiddle of a pretty tumultuous divorce, and
I was in Florida and didn't havea whole lot to do but go from
one place in the next and thenext and the next. So I just
started writing, and you know,I would write it, then i'd read
what I wrote, and i'd studysome more, then i'd add more,
and that's how I just kind ofget building on it. And then I
(14:46):
had somebody that knew how to typeand use the computer because I'm like illiterate
on a computer. She says,well, i'll help you, you know,
And then it was get in here, get in here, I got
a question. I got a question. Well, so then we start adding.
It was correct. But it tookabout three years. That's crazy.
(15:07):
And I finally felt I had astory. My mother had fallen ill and
scared everything out of us, andyou know, we just weren't sure how
much time she would have left.But she's still live and kicking and donner
really good, I might say.And so I kind of just said,
(15:30):
okay, I'm going to stop here, because most of what everybody knows about
Nancy is it's already written. Iwrote from a young like the birth of
Nancy until she was right around nineteen, maybe twenty years old, somewhere in
that range. And I say,you know, the rest of it's really
(15:52):
very well documented. So now I'vegot all these family members going, oh,
you need nobody tells it like youdo, Deborah. It's like,
oh, okay, well I stillhaven't finished it. I've got like three
or now four in there started,and you know, it's not as easy
(16:15):
as you might think. And I'malmost seventy and it's you know, it's
not easy at this age to becomesomething that you really weren't. I call
myself an accidental author, and Itruly believe that. You know, there
was nothing in me that was thedriving force that said, yo, you
(16:38):
know, you need to write abook some days. So that was my
girlfriend's deal, but she never didit, dog on it. So she's
been a great friend to me aswell as helped me navigate that first book
pretty good. There's nothing like gettingyour first bark to write a book and
then you're just like got to doit. And then when the first one
(17:00):
is done, you do slow downa bit. But my first one was
done when I was like twelve,so I didn't slow down at all.
So yeah, well I had abad English teacher, and you know,
(17:25):
because I always did have a flairfor being kind of creative, and you
know, she really gave me whatfor one day about how I wrote something,
and I think it kind of stoppedme and almost like was paralyzing.
It was you know, you don'tshouldn't do that to your children. And
(17:45):
I was a bright child. Igot good grades, and you know she
kind of stifled me, really,I believe, and thinking that what I
had to say. It wasn't important. Yeah, I definitely understand. That
didn't happen to me. To collegeand I was working on my third degree,
(18:08):
and I was almost done my creativewriting degree, and I think I
was like, it was my lastclass and I just gave up, and
I have an English degree instead ofa creative writing degree. No, no,
I have that, and I understandthat that importance, like the importance
(18:30):
to foster creativity. I have toadmit, like I am a narcissist,
so I'm gonna talk about me.I have to admit, like during the
entire time that I was in elementaryschool, it did not and and and
then in middle school it did notmatter to me because I got published when
I was ten, So it didn'tmatter to me that you didn't like it
because I was the best. Youjust didn't know yet when you caught up,
(18:52):
you'd figure it out. And ittook my third degree, my last
degree coming out of college for sowant to be like you're not the best
for me to be like, wait, you said what because everybody else I
was like, you're not the best? Oh boy, please, oh girl,
please? Whatever, Yeah, youjust need to read it again.
(19:12):
You'll find it. I get y'all, I get y'all beautiful. I'm sad
about this, teacher, because thereare great works that have been missed now
from missus de wor eight quite possibly. Yeah, it's all locked up in
here. If we could just getit out and here exactly. You have
(19:34):
to write what you know about,So write with your heart. I do
not write what I know. No, I don't, so what you know
about not maybe everything you know becauseI didn't write everything I know about Nancy
Word in that book. They're justI didn't want to get sued and I
didn't want a lot of controversy becauseit could happen. Tell me where we
(19:59):
can find I know more information aboutthis book. Yes, you can sign
up to the page of Woman ofMany Names on Facebook and go over some
of the extensive interviews I've done overthe years, and you can go to
ww dot Woman of Many Names andthat'll take you straight to the publisher if
you would like to buy a copyperhaps, and it's of course available in
(20:22):
Books a Million, Barnes and NobleAmazon. I did have a five star
rating, but I think I wentdown before and half because I got one
bad review. Because what happened wassomehow or another in the printing process,
they use the unedited copy. Ididn't send it to. Somebody that worked
(20:45):
for the publishing companies sent it tothem, and it had quite a few
spelling errors in it because I amnot the best speller in the world.
Sign anyway, there you go.I mean, our job is to create,
our job is not to make itperfect. But at a four,
(21:07):
yeah, I mean, so I'mmiss denying spirit. It's the same word
too. I mean, you gota spurt in your spirit. But anyway,
and I don't know how that happened. I don't know how that happened,
but it did. It did.So. But you know, a
(21:30):
bad review because someone actually like hatedthe book, Like yeah, like that
you get first bad review because someonehated the book? You like, excuse
you? Yeah, you know,are you eating kind of criticism? So
I'm glad that I have good goodall right, So you you all know
(21:55):
where you can find it? Canyou tell us one more time where you
can find out more information about thisbook? Yes, Facebook, like I
said, womenomani names dot com.You can probably find some reviews online.
There's a lot of pictures I've donesome really interesting dedication work in Tennessee where
(22:17):
where my grandmother is actually buried,my seventh great grandmother, and there's a
very old cemetery in Boat Ramp inBenton, Tennessee, beautiful spot. I
just worked with the dar the Daughtersof the American Revolution, and we actually
were able to procure a beautiful bronzeplaque for her for the two hundred and
(22:42):
fifty year anniversary of the Revolutionary War, you know, which is I guess
coming up or something like that,And yeah, two fifty and I think
it's in a just you know,another year and a half maybe, so
they're in the process of getting thesemarkers set in anticipation of those celebrations.
(23:06):
So that was fun. I've gottento work with the Parks Department of Tennessee,
who actually maintains the grounds where sheis buried. So it's been quite
an adventure. And I've got toknow doctor Bones, whose name is author
Bohannan, and he set up allthe like the first graveyards across America and
(23:30):
all around the world where they stickbodies and figure out how long they've been
there by the bugs that are inthem. He worked on this shuttle he
you know, helped, you know, with the collecting of the people on
the shuttle. He worked at nineto eleven and unfortunately did pick up some
long issues and stuff from working atground zero all those years. And he's
(23:56):
you know, teaching us how tofind bodies. It's been so cool.
He says, we're special. Hesaid, the Nancy Worlds are war descendants,
are that we're different and that wehave an intuitiveness that is uncanny,
just like she did. And soit's it's just been an amazing journey,
(24:21):
like I said, just crazy.Thank you so much Stubber for coming on
today and for talking about Nancy Ward. I have I have fallen in love
with this with your grandmother man somuch right there in the painting. Yeah,
and then the book is on theother side, it is, Yes,
(24:41):
it is. That's her. Soyou guys know exactly what it looks
like. Nobody's the word corner here. I well, I've got a couple
of corners for But yeah, she'skind of taken over my life, so
to speak. But you know,it's been a blessing truly, and thank
you so happens your show today.We're going to go ahead and wrap it
(25:07):
up for me over here. I'mone of the ant I Thought Ladies.
You can find all of our booksand anything about us at www dot and
I thought ladies dot com. Ifyou happen to be in London and you're
going to the London Book Fair inabout nine days or no it's ten days,
eleven days, eleven days and elevendays, yep, stop by and
come see us because we'll be there. Oh but if you're not at you
(25:33):
know, traveling over to London andbeing at the book fair, you'll see
us some other time whenever. Butremember when you go to our page,
go down to the middle of thepage and you can see the charities that
we probably support. We asked thatyou support them too. It does not
have to be with finances. Itcould be with time volunteering. It could
be with just giving them some knowledgeand access to the knowledge that you have
(25:55):
we asked. We thank you inadvance for that. And remember that wisdom
is all around you if you're opento finding and accepting it. So peace
and love you, guys, fromthe Wellnona and the Missing Jade. Oh yeah,
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