Dorothea Stratton (center) with her niece Bonnie and nephew Richard.

Pretty cool, huh? My mom, Dorothea Lorraine Hess Stratton is officially an author. A creative writing class inoculated her with the writing bug in the 1990s, and she began writing stories about growing up during the Great Depression on a farm near Pipestone, Minnesota.

Her folder of stories came to light when she gave up housekeeping about five years ago. My big sister decided to illustrate and hand bind one story per year to give to Mom at Christmas. Last year, Sis found Bookemon, an online service that allowed her to upload the illustrations and type in the text. The books can be ordered on the site, and the company prints, binds, and ships them.

Once our extended family members got wind of the titles below, they snapped them up.

Jenny, My First: The story of Mom’s love affair with Jenny, her pet pig.

Of Mice and Me: How the discovery of baby mice made a little girl’s mother dance.

The Little Irishman: Memories of Joseph Newell, Mom’s Irish grandfather.

Last but not least the self-explanatory My Big Brother Wayne and the Runaway Horses.

At the visitation for Aunt Lois last week, several cousins mentioned they had purchased copies to give to their children and grandchildren for Christmas. And then they hatched a plan to bring their books for Mom to sign after the funeral luncheon. Not a traditional location for book signings, but typical of children raised by survivors of the Great Depression who taught them how to make the most of what was available.

You can use the above the links to order copies of the books, too. A certain amount of the proceeds is donated to Iowa State University’s Scholarship fund that annually presents the Harlan Stratton Memorial Scholarship to an ISU student studying agriculture.

The author would love to sign the books, preferably not at another funeral luncheon however. For those of you who live nearby, Mom will be at our house from Thanksgiving Day until the following Tuesday. You bring the books, I’ll pour the coffee, and Mom’ll do the rest. How’s that for division of labor?