Miss Hattie Reminisces About Saint Charles

I suppose some folks might assume I’ve always lived in Cripple Creek, Colorado. Why, they might even figure I haven’t done anything but run Miss Hattie’s Boardinghouse on Golden Avenue. Truth is, I was once the age of our dear Sinclair Sisters. And younger.

Two Brides Too Many, Too Rich for a Bride, The Bride Wore Blue, and Twice a Bride

My hair might have grayed on me, but you can be certain my Cripple Creek adventures won’t be my last. Nor were they my first.

The days of my childhood dawned not in a mining camp or anywhere in the mountains of Colorado, but in Saint Charles on the banks of the Missouri River. Oh, you might also like to know that’s where I first met Boney Hughes. Or as the Sinclair Sisters like to call him, Mr. Boney.

Remembering those bittersweet days, I can’t help but breathe a wistful sigh.

I was but fifteen years of age, quilting with Mother and my dear friends in Mrs. Brantenberg’s circle, when talk of the caravan going west first buzzed through Saint Charles like a restless bumblebee.

Maren, Emilie, and Caroline may not want to hear this, but I like to think of The Quilted Heart novellas as my stories too. After all, I was there with them.

© 2014 Mona Hodgson, Author and Speaker